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FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


FACTORS   IN 
MODERN   HISTORY 


BY 


A.    R    POLLARD,    M.A. 
•i 

PROFESSOR  OF  CONSTITUTIONAL   HISTORY  IN  UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE,   LONDON 

AUTHOR    OF    'henry    VIIL,'    'a    LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CRANMER' 

'ENGLAND  UNDER  PROTECTOR  SOMERSET,'  ETC.,  ETC. 


NEW    YORK 

G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

1907 


••     •   *  ,  • 

• .  •     '    •  «    • 

I  •  •  •  •'    • 


^U  - 


-1/ 


Edinburgh:  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 


CONTENTS 

I.— NATIONALITY 

PAGB 

Imagination  necessary  for  the  study  of  History,     ....  I 

The  meaning  of  History  more  important  than  facts  or  dates,          .  2 

Modern  History  deals  with  the  national  State,      ....  3 
Ancient  History  with  the  City-state,  and  Medieval  History  with 

the  World-state, 4 

Empire  and  Papacy,     .........  5 

Absence  of  nationality  from  medieval  institutions,         ...  6 

International  law,  letters,  and  religion, 7-8 

The  gradual  nationalisation  of  all  these  factors,     .         .         .         .9-12 

Why  do  they  become  nationalised  ?       .         .         .         .         .         .  13 

What  is  national  character  ?  .         .......  14 

The  difference  between  race  and  nationality,          .         .         .         .  I J 

Nationality  the  result  of  the  influence  of  environment  upon  race,    .  16 

Primitive  man  and  the  soil, 17 

The  differentiation  of  race, iS 

The  territorial  supersedes  the  personal  relation,     ....  19 

Local  V.  national  consciousness,    .......  20-21 

The  growth  of  nationalism  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  22 

The  decline  of  international  institutions, 23 

National  character  the  effect  rather  than  the  cause  of  History,       .  24 


II.— THE  ADVENT  OF  THE   MIDDLE   CLASS 

The  questions  when ?  where?  how?  and  why?  of  History,    .         .    26-27 

Comparative  unimportance  of  dates,      .         .         .         .         .         .  28 

The  question  why  ?  all-important,          ......  29 

History  not  an  exact  science,         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  30 

Why  does  Modern  History  begin  when  it  does  ?    .         .         .         .  3 1 

Gradual  transition  from  Medieval  to  Modern  History,           .         .  32 

Nalura  nihil facit per  saltum^ 33 

Undue  neglect  of  the  fifteenth  century, 34 

Why  was  America  discovered  in  1492  ? 35 

Because  the  Turks  had  choked  the  old  trade-routes,       ...  36 

T 


649971 


vi        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

fAtsm 

Geographical  expansion  due  to  commercial  motives,      •        •        •  37 

Consequent  intellectual  expansion, 38 

Growth  of  a  middle-class, 39-40 

Feudalism   a   rural  organisation  which  contemplated   only  two 

classes, 41 

Fluidity  of  class-distinctions  in  England, 42-45 

Economic  expansion  in  England, 46-47 

The    consequent    quickening    of   middle-class    intellect    in    the 

Renaissance,          .........  48 

Gradual  development  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,      .  49 

Both  are  aspects  of  middle-class  revolt  against  ecclesiasticism,       .  50 

III.— THE   NEW   MONARCHY 

Patriotism  becomes  national, 52 

The  growth  of  the  idea  of  the  national  State,         ....  53 

The  Church  as  the  governess  of  the  State,     .....  54 

The  State  reaches  maturity  and  the  governess  is  dismissed,    .         .  55 

Slow  development  of  this  process,         ......  56 

Action  and  reaction  of  forces  and  ideas,         .....  57-58 

Le  nouveau  Messie  est  le  roi^         .......  59 

The  making  of  modern  nations 60 

Austria, 61 

Spain, 62-64 

France, 65-66 

Birth  of  international  relations, 67 

The  monarch  is  the  representative  of  the  new  nationality,     .         .  68 

He  is  reinforced  by  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reception,         .         .  69 

Absolutist  tendencies  in  the  Reformation 70-71 

P'actors  in  the  New  Monarchy  in  England, 72 

Popular  attitude  towards  Parliament  and  the  Monarchy,         .         .  73 

Magna  Carta  not  yet  discovered, 74 

*  The  divinity  that  doth  hedge  a  king,' 75 

Royalty  a  caste  apart, 76 

The  real  tyranny  of  Tudor  times, 77*78 

IV.— HENRY  VIII.   AND   THE   ENGLISH 
REFORMATION 

The  wives  of  Henry  VIII., 79 

The  pilot  who  weathered  the  storm, 80 

His  other  achievements, 81 

Necessity  of  finding  some  explanation  for  his  reign,       ...  82 

Farcere  subjectis  tt  debellare  superbos, 83 


CONTENTS  vii 

PAGE 

Demagogue  and  despot,        ........  84 

Machiavelli's  Prince  in  action,      .......  85 

Salus  populi  suprema  lex,      . 86 

Popular  approval  of  this  doctrine,          ......  87 

And  of  Tudor  rule, 88 

Henry's  education,        .........  89 

Wolsey's  failure,  ..........  90 

Parliament  and  the  Church,           .         .         .         .         .         .         .  91 

The  *  divorce '  of  Catherine  of  Aragon,           .....  92 

The  question  of  the  Succession,    .......  93 

The  Pope's  dilemma, 94 

The  breaking  of  the  bonds  of  Rome,     ......  95 

State  V.  Church, 96 

The  nationalisation  of  the  Church,         ......  97 

The  Royal  Supremacy,  .......  98-101 

The  Anglican  compromise,  ........  102 

The  *  Morning  Star '  of  the  Reformation, 103 


v.— PARLIAMENT 

The  eclipse  of  Parliaments  in  the  sixteenth  century, 

The  feebleness  of  the  English  House  of  Lords, 

Popular  indifference  to  the  House  of  Commons,    . 

Representation  an  irksome  duty,  .... 

Parliament  re-created  by  the  Tudors,   . 

Variations  in  the  Tudor  attitude  towards  Parliament, 

Wolsey's  ecclesiastical  aversion  to  Parliament, 

The  Parliamentary  revival  after  Wolsey's  fall, 

Elizabeth  and  her  Parliaments,     . 

Was  Parliament  servile  under  Henry  viii.  ? , 

Freedom  of  election,     .... 

The  dominant  mercantile  interest, 

Cromwell's  case,  ..... 

Interference  under  Edward  VI.  and  Mary, 

The  Cornish  boroughs  and  the  Wentworths, 

Bribery  and  corruption, 

Freedom  of  speech,       .... 

Freedom  from  arrest,   .... 

Tudor  V.  Stuart  policy, 

The  growth  of  Parliamentary  pugnacity, 


107- 


104 
105 
106 
108 
109 
no 
III 
112 
114 
116 
118 
119 
120 
121 
122 
123 
124 

125 

126 
127-129 


VI.— SOCIAL  REVOLUTION 

Government  in  the  interest  of  the  governors. 
Predominance  of  the  landed  interest,    .         .         .         » 


130 
131 


viii         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

PACK 

Growth  of  the  mercantile  interest, 132 

Little  sympathy  with  the  masses, 133 

The  peasant  under  the  feudal  system, 134 

Collectivism  in  the  Middle  Ages, 135 

Peasant  Revolts, 136 

Rise  of  Capitalism, 137 

The  cash-nexus  applied  to  the  land 138 

Custom  V.  competition, 139 

The  meaning  of  Enclosures, 140 

A  revolution  of  the  rich  against  the  poor,      .....  141 

Its  effects  on  the  military  system, 142 

And  on  education,         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .143 

The  problem  of  the  unemployed 144-145 

Modern  poverty  the  creation  of  modern  wealth,    ....  146 

The  attitude  of  the  government, 147 

John  Hales, 148 

Protector  Somerset's  action  in  1548, 149^ 

*  As  it  pleaseth  my  landlord,  so  shall  it  be,' 150 

Combines  and  Trades  Unions, 151 

Parliament  v.  Protector, 152 

The  risings  of  1549, 153 

Reaction  under  Warwick, 154 

The  pauperisation  of  the  poor, 155 

VII.— POLITICAL  IDEAS  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH  AND 

SEVENTEENTH  CENTURIES 

Politics  z*.  Religion  in  the  sixteenth  century 156 

An  age  of  secularisation 157 

Predominance  of  the  State, 158 

Reformers  set  up  the  divine  right  of  the  State,      .         .         .         159-160 

The  influence  of  Roman  Civil  Law, 161 

Reasons  of  State  adopted  by  the  Church, 162 

Cranmer's  position, 163 

Divine  Right  v.  Divine  Hereditary  Right, 164 

James  I. 's  theory 165-166 

Civil  V.  Common  Law 167-168 

The  difference  between  English  and  other  Constitutions,       .         .       170 

The  Revolution  of  1688 171 

Hobbes's  Ztfz/zaMaw, 172 

Sovereignty  of  the  State 173 

The  Contract  theory, 174 

Hobbes  on  the  state  of  nature 175 

Filmer's  Patriarcha^ 1 76 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

Locke's  Two  Treatises, 177 

Reply  to  Hobbes, 178 

Rousseau  on  the  Social  Contract, 179 

Montesquieu  and  Maine,       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .180 

VIII.— CHURCH  AND  STATE  IN  ENGLAND  AND 

SCOTLAND 

Anglo-Scottish  antipathies,  .......         182-183 

England  Erastian,  Scotland  theocratic, 184 

Parliament  v.  Convocation,  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .186 

The  weakness  of  the  Church  in  England,      .....       187 

The  weakness  of  Parliament  in  Scotland, 188 

Absence  of  a  middle  class,    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .189 

The  strength  of  the  Church  in  Scotland,        ....         190-191 

The  real  Parliament  of  Scotland  is  the  Congregation,  .  .  .192 
*  New  Presbyter  is  but  old  Priest  writ  large,'  .  .  .  193-194 
Puritanism  in  England,  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .195 

The  Independents, 196 

Selden  and  the  Erastians, 197 

English  State  v.  Scottish  Kirk, 198 

Dunbar,        ...........       199 

Cromwell's  government  in  Scotland, 200 

The  Restoration  in  Scotland, 201 

"Witchcraft, 202 

Politics  and  Religion  under  Charles  il., 203 

Political  theology,         .         .         .         .         .         .         .     ^   .         .       204 

The  decadence  of  dogma, 205 

The  Union  of  1707, 206 

IX.— CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS 

Written  and  rigid  Constitutions, 208 

Does  the  British  Constitution  exist  ? 209 

Flexible  Constitutions, 210 

The  American  Constitution, 211 

The  Prime  Minister, .         .212 

The  Cabinet, 213 

Conventions  of  the  Constitution,  .......       214 

Reasons  for  the  rigidity  of  the  American  Constitution,  .  .  .  215 
Why  were  the  Cromwellian  Constitutions  written  and  rigid?  .       216 

Cromwell's  constitutional  ideas, 217 

Government  by  the  sword,    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .218 

Fundamental  Law,       ........         219-220 

Magna  Carta  as  Fundamental  Law, 221 


FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


Cromwell  claims  prerogative, 
The  Instrument  of  Government, 
Parliamentary  Union,  . 
Redistribution  of  Seats, 
Abolition  of  rotten  boroughs, 
Readjustment  of  the  Franchise, 
The  '  Other '  House,     . 
The  failure  of  the  Instrument^ 
Cromwell  on  the  Levellers,  . 
Cromwell  as  King, 
The  Humble  Petition  and  Advice y 
The  revolt  of  the  Republicans, 
*  Good  King  Charles's  golden  days. 


PACE 

222 
223 
224 
225 
226 
227 
228 
229 
230 
231 
232 
233 
234-235 


X.— COLONIAL  EXPANSION 

The  Birth-year  of  the  Empire, 236 

Its  relative  unimportance, 237 

The  Seven  Years'  War, 238 

The  share  of  the  soldier  in  the  building  of  Empires,       .         .         .  239 

A  million  and  a  quarter  Britons  v.  eighty  thousand  French, .         .  240 

America  in  1650,.         .........  241 

Elizabethan  failures,     ...  '         .         .         .         .         242-243 

Eldorado  v.  Empire, 244-245 

The  French  in  Canada, 246 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers, 247 

Religious  persecution, 248 

Dutch,  Swedes,  and  French, 249 

Nova  Scotia, 250 

The  first  conquest  of  Quebec, 251 

The  first  Colonial  Federation, 252-253 

The  Colonies  and  the  Mother  Country 254 

Carolina, 255 

The  New  Netherlands, 256 

Their  conquest  by  the  English, 257 

New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania, 258 

The  last  Stuart  attack  on  Colonial  liberties, 259 

The  Revolution  and  the  Colonies, 260 


XL— THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  LONDON  AND 
THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY 


The  neglect  of  History  in  London  University, 
The  use  of  History 


263.265 
266-267 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

Education  v.  technical  instruction,        ......  268 

Popular  indifference,    .........  269 

The  relation  of  a  Charlottenburg  to  a  University,           .         .         .  270 

The  example  of  Germany, 271 

German  interest  in  History,           .......  272 

Failure  to  establish  a  Chair  of  History  in  London  University,        .  273 
Difficulties  of  creating  an  undergraduate   School  of  History  in 

London,         .........        274-275 

Internal  v.  External  Examinations,       ......  276 

Unique  facilities  for  a  Post-graduate  School  of  History  in  London,  277 

Need  for  a  school  of  Naval  History, 278 

Military  History,           .........  279 

The  History  of  London, 280 

The  History  of  our  own  Times,     .         .         .         .         .         .         .  28 1 

The  national  functions  and  duties  of  Universities,          .         .         .  282 

The  comprehensiveness  of  History, 283 

The  need  for  criticism,          ........  284 

The  question  of  Endowments,       .......  285 

A  London  University  Press,          .......  286 

The  Future  of  London  University, 287 


Note. — The  Eleventh  of  these  Essays  was  published  in  the  National 
Review  {December  1904),  to  the  editor  of  which  the  writer  is  indebted  for 
permission  to  reprint. 


-•  *  ',• 


FACTORS    IN    MODERN    HISTORY 


NATIONALITY 

Whatever  I  may  hope  to  say  or  to  do  in  the 
ensuing  lectures,  one  thing  at  least  I  shall  not 
attempt ;  and  that  is,  to  give  you  a  history  of 
England  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centu- 
ries. An  effort  of  that  kind  would  simply  result  in 
the  perpetration  of  yet  another  of  those  miserable 
text-books  of  English  history,  which  may  be  neces- 
sary but  are  certainly  evil,  which  prefer  knowledge 
to  understanding,  and  seem  expressly  designed  to 
nip  the  bud  of  historical  interest  and  to  clip  the 
wings  of  historical  imagination.  It  is  almost  a 
miracle  that  any  incipient  students  of  history  survive 
this  crushing  ordeal :  if  they  do,  it  must  be  due  to 
the  inspiration  of  the  living  voice ;  and  no  teacher 
of  history  worth  the  name  relies  upon  the  compilations 
which  the  examination-system  compels  him  to  inflict 
upon  his  class. 

My  object  is  primarily  to  stimulate  imagination, 
and  I  make  no  apology  for  placing  imagination  in 
the  forefront  of  all  the  qualifications  indispensable 
for  the    student   and   teacher    of    history.     By   that 

A 


2  FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

curiou$:  process.  61  jdetenoration,  which  the  meaning 
of  words  undergoes,  the  v/ord  *  imagination '  is  com- 
mortlyj  irest;«"ict|Bfdito,.t:|jc'  imagination  of  deeds  which 
were  never  done,  and  of  causes  which  never  existed. 
Properly  it  includes  fact  as  well  as  fiction,  and 
signifies  the  power  of  realising  things  unseen,  and 
of  realising  the  meaning  of  things  seen.  A  portrait 
IS  a  truer  zma^e  than  a  fancy  sketch ;  and,  when  an 
English  ambassador  wrote  to  Henry  Vlll.  that  Holbein 
had  made  a  very  faithful  image  of  Anne  of  Cleves, 
he  meant  that  the  portrait  was  true  to  life.  So  history 
can  never  be  true  to  life  without  imagination.  Facts 
and  figures  are  dry  bones ;  it  requires  imagination 
to  clothe  them  with  life  and  meaning;  and  no 
accumulation  of  materials,  no  ransacking  of  archives, 
will  make  a  man  a  historian  without  the  capacity  to 
interpret  and  construct.  Not  that  I  wish  to  depreciate 
the  archivist  or  the  burrower  after  facts.  Solomon 
can  only  build  the  temple  after  David  has  collected 
the  materials.  And  these  materials  are  the  most 
valuable  means  by  which  to  train  and  cultivate  the 
imagination.  Reading  history  ready-made  is  to  making 
it  out  oneself  from  documents  what  looking  on  at  a 
football  match  is  to  playing  the  game  oneself,  or  what 
reading  a  detective  story  is  to  tracking  out  a  criminal ; 
and  to  teach  the  intelligent  use  of  documents  is  the 
first  of  the  neglected  duties  of  our  schools  of  history. 

Facts,  therefore — I  make  the  avowal  at  the  risk  of 
the  laughter  of  pedants — are  only  a  secondary  con- 
sideration from  my  point  of  view,  and  they  will  only 
be  used  as  illustrations.     That  phrase  is  perhaps  un- 


NATIONALITY  3 

lucky;  at  least  it  has  lately  caused  some  innocent 
merriment.  And,  indeed,  one's  facts  should  be  correct; 
but  their  meaning  is  greater  than  the  facts  themselves, 
and  it  is  with  the  meaning  of  historical  facts  that  I  am 
now  concerned.  It  is  only  when  we  penetrate  the 
outer  husks  of  facts  that  we  can  reach  the  kernel  of 
historic  truth.  A  fact  of  itself  is  of  little  value  unless 
it  conveys  a  meaning.  There  is  a  meaning  behind  all 
facts,  if  one  can  only  discover  it ;  but  to  discover  the 
meaning  of  facts  is  commonly  the  last  object  at  which 
the  writers  of  text-books  aim.  Facts  are  stated  as 
though  their  statement  were  all  that  is  necessary,  and 
as  though  to  remember  them  were  more  important  than 
to  understand  them,  as  though  the  end  of  education 
were  to  make  the  youthful  mind  a  lumber-room  of  facts, 
instead  of  an  efficient  instrument,  trained  to  perform 
the  duties  of  life  and  to  discover  the  features  of  truth. 

So  far  as  may  be,  then,  I  hope  to  bring  out  the 
significance  which  underlies  the  ordinary  facts  of  some 
portions  of  modern  English  history,  and  particularly 
that  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  And 
in  this  first  lecture  I  want  to  take  what  seems  to  me 
the  dominant  note  of  modern,  as  distinct  from  medieval 
and  ancient  history — I  mean  nationality.  For  modern 
history  deals  primarily  with  the  national  State,  while 
ancient  history  deals  largely  with  the  City-state,  and 
medieval  history  with  the  World-state,  secular  or 
ecclesiastical.  That,  of  course,  is  a  very  rough 
generalisation  ;  the  transitory  empire  of  Alexander, 
if  it  can  be  considered  a  state  at  all,  was  almost  a 
world-state.     City-states,  too,  existed  in  Italy  and  in 


4  FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Germany  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  Geneva,  Venice, 
Genoa  continued  the  species  beyond  the  latest  of  the 
various  dates  at  which  modern  history  is  said  to  have 
begun.  Nevertheless,  the  City-state  is  the  predominant 
type  of  the  ancient  civilised  world  ;  with  it  Aristotle's 
Politics^  the  greatest  text-book  of  political  science,  is 
almost  exclusively  concerned.  Now,  Aristotle  says 
a  great  many  things  about  the  State,  which  are  not 
yet  out  of  date :  its  permanence  can  only  be  secured 
by  the  toleration  of  all  the  elements  in  it,  it  must 
pay  great  regard  to  education,  must  have  a  care  of 
virtue,  rests  upon  justice,  is  not  made  happier  by 
conquest,  and  so  forth.  His  doctrine  that  it  should 
be  economically  self-sufficing  is  perhaps  more  familiar 
than  indisputable,  but  his  criteria  as  to  its  size  sound 
strange  in  modern  ears.  It  must  not  be  so  large  that 
its  citizens,  gathered  in  one  public  meeting,  cannot  hear 
the  speaker's  voice,  and  a  State  the  size  of  Birmingham 
would  have  appeared  to  him  unwieldy  from  its  bulk. 
Such  an  estimate  illustrates  the  difference,  made  by 
the  development  of  modern  representative  systems 
and  the  abolition  of  slavery,  between  the  ancient  and 
the  modern  state. 

The  World-state  is  not  less  typical  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  though  perhaps  more  as  regards  its  theory  than 
its  practice.  You  remember  the  Cheshire  cat  in  Alice 
in  Wonderland^  whose  smile  remained  long  after  the 
cat  had  disappeared.  The  same  phenomenon  is 
common  enough  in  history  and  in  politics ;  and  the 
idea  of  the  World-state  continued  to  fascinate  men's 
minds  long  after  it  had  lost  material  existence.    The 


NATIONALITY  5 

Roman  Empire  had  become  more  than  an  institution  ; 
it  was  the  only  form  in  which  men  could  conceive  the 
political  organisation  of  the  world.  For  centuries  it 
had  existed  ;  and  the  contempt  and  neglect  of  pagan 
history,  which  Gregory  the  Great  impressed  upon  men's 
minds,  obliterated  the  knowledge  that  there  had  ever 
been  any  different  political  existence.  Hence  the 
revival  of  the  Empire  in  the  times  of  Charles  the 
Great  and  Otto — a  revivalism  which  reaches  its  height 
with  Otto  III.  and  the  fancied  approach  of  the  millen- 
nium in  the  year  looo.  Hence,  too,  the  development 
of  the  Papacy,  which  grew  up  under  the  shadow,  and 
moulded  itself  after  the  form,  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Empire  and  Papacy,  said  Zwingli,  both  come  from 
Rome.  The  law  of  the  one  was  Roman  civil  law,  the 
law  of  the  other  was  Roman  canon  law,  and  in  both 
cases  it  was  universal.  The  world  was  one  and  in- 
divisible, though  it  had  two  aspects,  secular  and  ecclesi- 
astical, temporal  and  spiritual.  In  one  aspect  the 
Emperor  was  its  head,  in  the  other  the  Pope.  The 
two  spheres  were  ill-defined,  and  the  struggle  between 
them  fills  the  greater  part  of  medieval  history, 
Papalists  compared  the  Papacy  with  the  sun,  the 
empire  with  the  moon,  which  only  shone  with  the 
reflected  light  conferred  by  Pope  Leo  ill.  upon  Charles 
the  Great.  The  empire  was  like  the  body,  temporal 
and  transitory,  the  Papacy  was  like  the  soul,  spiritual 
and  imperishable. 

Popes  claimed  by  right  both  swords,  the  temporal 
and  the  spiritual,  but  entrusted  the  temporal  sword  to 
the  emperor,   because   the   execution   of  justice   was 


6    FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

menial  work  beneath  their  spiritual  dignity.  Im- 
perialists retorted  with  arguments  drawn  from  Biblical 
injunctions  of  obedience  to  the  powers  that  be  and 
from  the  Scriptural  recognition  of  the  divine  ordination 
of  authority.  The  clergy  might  be  the  bearers  of  the 
keys,  but  it  was  only  in  the  capacity  of  turnkeys — a 
more  menial  office  than  the  execution  of  justice.  And 
so  the  contest  waged  in  the  closet  and  on  the  field  of 
battle,  with  sword  and  dagger  and  spear,  with  bell, 
book  and  candle.  It  was  ever  a  strife  between  two 
powers  and  two  jurisdictions,  both  claiming  to  be 
universal  and  international.  Although  the  voice  of 
nationality  is  heard  in  the  councils  of  Philip  IV.  of 
France  and  in  the  wars  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
world  is  still  to  Dante  one  monarchy  and  the  emperor 
Henry  Vll.  is  its  monarch. 

This  absence  of  nationality  is  characteristic  of  all 
medieval  institutions.  The  empire  is  ex  hypothesi  2Si 
international  organisation.  It  is  associated  with  the 
German  monarchy  as  a  rule,  but  that  is  only  an 
accident.  The  empire,  claiming  all  the  world  as  its 
subjects,  knows  nothing  of  aliens ;  they  are  a  modern 
invention.  Alfonso  of  Castile  is  a  candidate  for  the 
empire  ;  he  fails,  but  his  Spanish  nationality  is  no  bar 
to  his  pretension.  Later  on,  Henry  VIII.  and  Francis  I. 
are  candidates  for  the  imperial  throne ;  German 
sentiment  is  against  them,  but  there  is  no  law  to 
exclude  an  Englishman  or  a  Frenchman.  Any  one 
can  hold  an  imperial  fief;  a  Pole  or  a  Spaniard  is  the 
same  as  a  German  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  of  the 
empire;    they  arc  no  more  foreigners  than  a  Saxon 


NATIONALITY  7 

or  a  Suabian.  Law,  in  fact,  is  in  the  Middle  Ages 
international.  There  are,  it  is  true,  various  kinds  of 
law,  civil  law,  canon  law,  feudal  law  and  folkright ; 
and  the  differences  are  pronounced  enough.  But  they 
are  not  national  differences.  Feudal  custom  is  much 
the  same,  wherever  you  meet  it  in  Western  Europe. 
The  tenant-in-chief,  the  mailed  knight,  the  curia  regis^ 
the  lord's  demesne,  the  castle,  rights  of  jurisdiction, 
obligations  of  defence,  are  everywhere.  We  are  taught, 
indeed,  that  feudalism  was  introduced  into  England 
from  France  ;  but  recently  a  French  scholar  has  re- 
paid us  the  compliment  by  asserting  that  feudalism 
was  imported  from  England  into  Normandy  and 
thence  spread  throughout  France.  The  honour  is 
apparently  not  coveted.  But  no  one  people  invented 
feudalism  ;  it  grew  out  of  disorderly  conditions  which 
were  common  all  over  Europe,  and  therefore  it  assumed 
a  common  form. 

If  feudal  law  and  custom  were  not  national,  still  less 
^so  were  Roman  civil  and  Roman  canon  law.  The 
emperor  was  the  fountain  of  one  ;  quod  principi  placuit 
legis  habet  vigorem  wrote  Ulpian.  The  Pope  was  the 
fountain  of  the  other ;  habet  omnia  jura  in  scrinio  suo, 
said  Clement  vil.  The  State  might  resist  the  applica- 
tion of  canon  law  as  the  English  barons  did  in  1236, 
and  the  Church  might  forbid  the  study  of  civil  law  as 
did  Popes  Honorius  and  Innocent  III. ;  but  in  both 
cases  it  would  be  two  universal  claims  contending  in 
a  particular  locality,  rather  than  a  national  contending 
against  a  universal  sentiment. 

As  with  laws,  so  with  letters.     The  Middle  Ages 


8  FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

had  their  Esperanto  ready  made  and  natural  in  growth. 
Every  one  in  Western  Europe  who  could  write,  wrote 
the  same  language,  and  that  was  Latin.  History  was 
easy  to  the  monkish  chronicler  because  his  original 
documents  were  all  in  the  same  language.  Intercourse 
with  foreign  scholars  was  robbed  of  its  impediments 
and  perhaps  some  of  its  amusement ;  and  the  barriers, 
which  now  obstruct  the  interchange  of  intellectual 
currency,  had  not  yet  been  erected.  Alien  and 
foreigner  were  not  yet  terms  of  insult  and  contempt. 
The  literature,  on  which  youth  was  nourished,  was 
not  painted  red  nor  adorned  with  Union  Jacks. 
Vernacular  tongues  were  spoken  as  dialects  are  to- 
day, but  they  were  not  written ;  and  national  literatures 
only  arise  when  the  Middle  Ages  decay.  The  Bible 
was  the  same  wherever  it  was  read  ;  the  same  Vulgate 
text  served  for  English  and  Italian,  for  German  and 
for  Spaniard.  And  although  there  was  room  for  local 
option  in  the  matter  of  ritual,  its  broad  outlines  were 
the  same  in  every  church  and  chapel  of  the  West.  The 
universities  were  international  institutions  ;  a  national 
university  would  have  seemed  a  poor  and  narrow 
thing,  and  academic  organisation  was  based  upon 
the  idea  that  at  least  four  nations  would  be  represented 
in  each  university.  Even  the  wars  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  not  national ;  the  greatest  are  the  Crusades  ; 
then  there  are  wars  between  Empire  and  Papacy,  and 
lowest  of  all  comes  the  feudal  strife  of  vassal  against 
vassal  or  vassal  against  his  lord  ;  there  is  no  really 
national  war  before  the  Hundred  Years'  War  between 
England  and  France. 


NATIONALITY  9 

Religion  also  was  cosmopolitan ;  the  Church  uni- 
versal was  visible  as  well  as  invisible.  It  had  divisions 
of  course.  There  were  laymen  and  priests,  secular 
priests  and  regulars,  monks  and  friars.  But  the 
sections  were  horizontal,  not  vertical ;  they  ran  all 
through  Western  Christendom,  and  did  not  divide  it 
into  geographical  parts.  The  monastic  orders  were 
peculiarly  international  ;  the  whole  world  was  their 
parish ;  their  general  chapters  were  cosmopolitan 
parliaments  ;  and  the  rigidity  of  their  international 
character  brought  them  into  sharp  collision  with  the 
rising  national  spirit  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
made  them  the  first  spoils  of  the  Reformation. 

The  change  from  this  partially-realised  ideal  of 
unity  to  the  modern  diversity  of  national  tongues 
and  national  churches,  national  laws  and  national 
liberties,  is  the  greatest  factor  in  the  evolution  of 
modern  from  medieval  history.  We  may  express  it 
by  means  of  a  diagram. 


England. 

France. 

Germany. 

Spain. 

Folkright. 

Feudal  Custom. 

Civil  Law. 

Canon  Law. 

10        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Take  the   feudal,   civil,   and   canonical   varieties  of 
medieval  law  and  custom.     They  are  separated  from 
one  another  by  horizontal  lines,  which  spread  all  over 
Western  Europe,  recognising  no  distinction  of  nation- 
ality.    So  with  ecclesiastical   institutions,  dogma  and 
ritual,  seculars  and  regulars,  monks  and  friars.     But 
what  happens  ?     Imperceptibly  vertical  lines  begin  to 
traverse    the    horizontal    lines.       Feudal    custom    in 
England    is    differentiated    from    feudal     custom    in 
France ;  for  instance,  by  the  Salisbury  oath  of  1086 
William  the  Conqueror  makes  every  man's  duty  to  his 
king  superior  to  his  duty  to  his  lord.     Canon  law  is 
limited  in  England  where  it  is  not  limited  abroad  ;  for 
instance,  in  1236  the  English  barons  refuse  to  assimi- 
late  the   laws   of  England   to   those   of  the    Church 
universal  with  respect  to  the  legitimation  of  bastards 
by  the  subsequent  marriage  of  the  parents.     English 
common  law  ^  modifies  and  moulds  all  other  kinds  of 
laws.     As  the  vertical  lines  get  deeper,  the  horizontal 
lines  tend  to  become  obliterated,  and   feudal  custom, 
civil  law  and  canon  law,  tend  to  become  merged  in 
national   systems   of  English,   French,   German,    and 
Spanish  law.      In   the   sixteenth   century,  the   canon 
law,  so  far  as  it  is  not  embedded  in  the  common  law, 
becomes  binding  on  the  laity  only  inforo  conscientiae. 
The  struggle  between  the  civil  and  the  common  law  is 
more  prolonged  and  calls  for  treatment  later  on.     But 
eventually  they  too  are  merged  in  a  national  system. 

^  Common  law  is  the  one  law  which  is  not  common  over  Western 
Europe,  but  is  common  over  all  classes  in  England.  It  is  the  law  of  the 
Curia  Regis ^  and  is  the  first  kind  of  national  law. 


NATIONALITY  ii 

In  the  same  way  the  somewhat  obscure  vertical  line 
between  the  Church  in  England  and  the  Church 
abroad  grows  clear  and  sharp,  and  the  horizontal  lines 
grow  dim.  There  is  no  room  in  an  aggressively- 
national  system  for  international  institutions  which 
refuse  to  compromise  their  universal  character,  and 
the  monks  and  friars  disappear.  The  Thirty-Nine 
Articles  are  not  the  articles  of  any  but  the  Anglican 
Church  ;  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  is  its  unique  and 
priceless  property.  The  Church  in  England  has  been 
nationalised ;  it  has  become  the  Church  of  England. 
It  is  the  same  abroad  :  cujus  regio^  ejus  religio  was  the 
maxim  of  the  Peace  of  Augsburg  (1555)  in  which  the 
territorial  princes  of  Germany  asserted  the  fact  that 
they  had  conquered  in  the  Church  as  well  as  in  the  State. 

Language  and  literature,  too,  become  nationalised. 
We  can  scarcely  say  that  either  a  national  language 
or  a  national  literature  existed  in  England  before  the 
fourteenth  century,  before  the  days  of  Langland,  of 
Wycliffe,  and  of  Chaucer.  For  Anglo-Saxon  is  not 
English,  nor  is  it  literature.  A  national  German 
language  and  literature  arise  about  the  same  time. 
French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  are  perhaps  earlier, 
because  less  original.  The  Bible  is  translated  into 
these  vernacular  tongues,  and  is  nationalised  :  it  is  no 
longer  the  same  in  England,  France,  Germany,  and 
Spain :  and  the  more  idiomatic  the  translation,  the 
more  popular  it  becomes.  Luther's  New  Testament 
and  the  Authorised  Version  of  the  English  Bible 
would  never  have  been  great  national  forces  had  they 
been   exactly    alike.      Universities  lose  their  cosmo- 


12    FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

politan  character,  and  for  the  time  suffer  severely  by 
the  change :  indeed  they  rarely  flourish  amid  national 
animosities.  So,  too,  patriotism  began  to  invade  the 
schoolroom,  and  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  'we  find 
the  author  of  De  Proeliis  Anglorum — a  sort  of  sixteenth 
century  Deeds  that  won  the  Empire — writing  to  Burghley 
to  point  out  how  much  better  it  would  be  for  English 
schoolboys  to  study  his  book  than  Ovid's  Metamor- 
phoses, He  actually  obtained  an  advertisement  from  the 
Privy  Council,  but  nations  had  not  yet  invented  national 
anthems.  They  began  in  the  eighteenth  century,  a 
fact  which  possibly  led  an  eminent  statesman  to 
declare  that  before  that  age  patriotism  did  not  exist. 

From  these  illustrations  of  the  working  of  the 
nationalist  and  separatist  spirit  we  must  turn  to  a 
more  difficult  question.  It  is  comparatively  easy  to 
see  the  horizontal  lines  of  medieval  unity  dissolving 
behind  the  vertical  lines  of  national  diversity:  and 
there  is  not  much  difficulty  in  discovering  that  the 
emphasis  of  the  latter  tended  to  obliterate  the  former. 
But  it  is  not  so  simple  to  explain  why  or  how  these 
nationalising  forces  grew,  why  the  national  prevailed 
over  the  universal,  and  the  centrifugal  over  the  centri- 
petal. There  is  one  obvious  and  facile  answer — 
national  character.  But  the  obvious  is  always  super- 
ficial, and  the  facile  is  generally  false.  National 
character,  as  Professor  Maitland  has  satirically  pointed 
out,  is  a  wonder-working  spirit  at  the  beck  and  call  of 
every  embarrassed  historian,  a  sort  of  deus  ex  machina^ 
which  is  invoked  to  settle  any  problem  which  cannot 
readily    be  solved   by   ordinary   methods   of  rational 


NATIONALITY  13 

investigation.  The  rule  of  the  game  seems  to  be, 
*  when  in  doubt,  play  National  Character.'  It  is  assumed 
to  be  a  fixed  and  permanent  force  slowly  perhaps, 
but  surely,  moulding  national  institutions,  shaping 
national  ends,  and  working  out  the  national  destiny. 
It  existed,  presumably,  from  the  beginning,  and  to  it 
are  ascribed  all  national  differences.  Is  liberty  the 
predominant  feature  of  the  English  constitution  and 
governmental  privilege  of  the  French?  It  is  due  to 
national  character.  'When  Britain  first  at  Heaven's 
command  arose  from  out  the  azure  main,'  it  received  a 
charter  and  a  double  dose  of  original  independence. 
When  France  began  to  drag  out  its  miserable  exist- 
ence, its  people  received  a  double  dose  of  original 
servility,  and  a  charter  which  made  each  Frenchman 
equal  to  about  one  third  of  an  Englishman.  The  idea 
was  older  than  *  Rule  Britannia  ! '  '  We  must  fight  it 
out '  exclaimed  the  disappointed  and  dispossessed 
peasants,  who  rebelled  in  1549,  *or  be  brought  into  like 
slavery  that  the  Frenchmen  are  in!  We  do  not  use  the 
word  slavery  nowadays  when  speaking  of  the  French, 
but  we  often  mean  much  the  same  thing ;  and  it  is  an 
article  of  the  Englishman's  creed  that  whatever  differ- 
ences exist  between  England  and  the  continent  are 
due  to  the  inherent  and  ineradicable  superiority  of 
English  national  character. 

But  what  is  this  national  character  ?  Where  does  it 
come  from?  from  our  Celtic,  our  German,  or  our 
Norse  ancestors  ?  Or  is  it  due  to  none  of  these  pure 
brands,  but  to  the  extraordinary  virtue  of  a  very 
special  blend?     The  first  and  most  persistent  confu- 


14         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

sion  which  meets  us  in  this  discussion  is  the  identifica- 
tion of  nationality  with  race.  Now  race  is  one  of  the 
vaguest  words  in  the  language.  We  use  it  to  dis- 
tinguish men  from  other  animals,  and  speak  of  the 
human  race.  We  use  it  to  differentiate  various 
branches  of  the  human  family,  and  speak  of  the 
Aryan,  Semitic,  and  other  races.  We  employ  it  for 
further  subdividing  Aryans  into  Teutonic  and  Celtic 
races,  for  subdividing  Teutonic  races  into  English, 
German,  Dutch,  and  Norse :  and  we  even  talk  of 
English-speaking  races,  American,  Canadian,  Aus- 
tralian, and  Afrikander.  Race  in  fact  may  mean  half 
a  dozen  kinds  of  subdivision,  so  that  it  cannot  possibly 
be  the  cause  of  any  one  of  those  subdivisions,  and  we 
do  not  get  much  further  in  our  analysis  of  nationality 
by  identifying  it  with  race. 

There  is  another  bar  to  the  identification.  A  Jew 
can  no  more  change  his  race  than  an  Ethiopian  can 
his  skin,  but  he  can  assume  English,  French,  or 
American  nationality  with  very  little  trouble.  Nation- 
ality is  a  coat  which  can  rapidly  be  turned.  A  few 
years  ago  an  alien  was  a  candidate  for  the  House  of 
Commons :  he  was  of  German  nationality  two  days 
before  his  nomination :  nine  days  later  he  was  a 
patriotic  British  M.P.  The  variety  of  races  which 
constitute  British  nationality  is  astonishing.  'Saxon, 
or  Norman,  or  Dane  are  we'  sang  Tennyson:  but  the 
exigencies  of  time,  space,  and  metre  prevented  him  from 
giving  an  exhaustive  list.  We  are  also  Scots,  Irish, 
Welsh,  German,  French,  Spaniards  and  Italians — not 
to  mention  the  lost  Ten  Tribes.     From  the  days  of 


NATIONALITY  15 

Simon  de  Montfort  downwards  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  British  patriots  have  not  been  British  in 
race.  Merely  to  recall  names  like  Disraeli,  Bentinck, 
Keppel,  Romilly,  Goschen,  Vanbrugh,  Panizzi,  Rossetti, 
Rothschild  indicates  the  debt  we  owe  in  the  sphere  of 
law  and  letters,  politics,  art,  and  finance,  to  men  of 
alien  race ;  and  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  nearly  all 
great  English  musicians  have  been  Germans,  and  most 
great  English  painters  Dutch.  It  is  well  for  our 
national  achievement  that  we  have  had  no  prohibitive 
tariff  on  the  import  of  alien  immigrants. 

Nor  are  we  peculiar  in  this  respect.  Natives  of  the 
British  Isles  have  helped  to  create  the  armies  and 
fleets,  and  to  build  up  the  polities  of  most  European 
states.  In  the  eighteenth  century  you  might  have 
found  one  Irishman  directing  as  prime  minister  the 
fortunes  of  Spain,  and  another  those  of  Naples,  a  third 
commanding  the  forces  of  Austria,  and  a  fourth  seek- 
ing to  rebuild  the  French  dominion  in  India.  Scots 
as  a  rule  restricted  their  attentions  to  Protestant 
countries,  but  John  Law  in  the  early  years  of  that 
century  did  wonderful  things  with  French  finance. 
The  right-hand  man  of  Frederick  the  Great  was  a 
Scot,  and  Scots  took  more  than  their  share  in  the 
making  of  Russia — an  article  of  almost  exclusively 
foreign  manufacture.  Peter  the  Great  himself  had  a 
mother  of  Scottish  birth,  and  the  fact  made  all  the 
difference  between  him  and  his  imbecile  half-brothers. 
Catherine  the  Great  was  a  German.  Napoleon  himself 
was  not  a  Frenchman  by  race :  one  of  his  marshals,  an 
Italian,   became   King   of  Sweden,  and  founded   the 


i6        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

present  Swedish  line  of  monarchs.  The  Kings  of 
Italy  come  from  Savoy,  and  the  Kings  of  Spain  are 
Bourbons,  and  the  Kings  of  Belgium  were  made  in 
Saxe-Coburg.  Even  in  England  we  have  had  no 
kings  of  exclusively  English  race  since  the  Battle  of 
Hastings.  The  conquering  Normans  were  succeeded 
by  the  Plantagenets  who  came  from  Anjou.  The 
Tudors  descended  on  England  from  the  mountains 
of  Wales,  and  the  Stuarts  from  over  the  Tweed  :  and 
our  last  royal  families  come  from  Brunswick  and  Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha. 

Nationality  then  is  something  more  and  something 
less  than  race.  It  is  mutable :  it  is  complex :  and 
compared  with  race  it  is  modern.  English  national 
character  did  not  exist  when  our  Teutonic  forebears 
left  the  shores  of  Germany.  The  tribes,  which 
migrated,  were  no  more  distinct  from  those  which 
stayed  behind  than  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  were  from 
the  Puritans  of  the  Long  Parliament.  The  differences 
between  English  and  German  history  are  not  due  to 
original  differences  of  national  character,  any  more 
than  are  the  differences  between  English  and  American 
history.  In  both  cases  the  different  national  character 
is  due  to  the  different  environment  and  history.  A 
scientist  made  the  same  point  the  other  day,  when  he 
asserted  that  environment  was  stronger  than  heredity. 
Nationality  is  the  effect,  rather  than  the  cause,  of 
history,  though  in  its  turn  it  does  affect  the  course 
of  history.  It  is  not  a  thing  to  be  assumed  with- 
out discussion  or  proof  like  the  definitions  of 
Euclid  :  it  is  a  mass  of  acquired  characteristics,  each 


NATIONALITY  17 

of  which  has  its  definite  and  more  or  less  ascertainable 
causes. 

We  go  back  to  the  earliest  records  the  peoples  of 
Western  Europe.  That  does  not  take  us  back  to  their 
beginnings  ;  for  anthropologists,  who  burrow  in  barrows 
and  caves,  tell  us  that  tens  of  centuries  of  human 
development  and  differentiation  had  rolled  by  be- 
fore the  earliest  record  appears.  But  the  light  in 
these  barrows  and  caves  is  dim,  and  their  evidence 
doubtful.  The  historian  cannot  go  far  beyond  Csesar 
for  the  beginnings  of  modern  Gaul,  nor  beyond  Tacitus 
for  those  of  modern  Germany  and  England :  and  the 
first  appearance  of  modern  peoples  upon  the  stage  of 
history  is  in  the  rdle  of  wanderers,  having  the  slightest 
connection  with  the  soil.  Such  property  as  they 
have  is  easily  moved — and  lifted.  Their  pursuits  are 
pastoral,  not  agricultural,  because  flocks  are  much 
more  mobile  than  crops  ;  and  primitive  man  is  always 
on  the  move.  The  soil  is  no  bond  and  no  tie :  it  has 
no  associations  for  them.  Sentiment  does  not  differen- 
tiate one  land  from  another,  but  only  its  fertility  and 
accessibility.  Their  relations  are  personal,  not  terri- 
torial :  they  are  kinsmen  rather  than  neighbours,  and 
the  word  '  neighbour '  comes  comparatively  late  into 
the  language,  not  until  the  system  of  *borh'  has  re- 
placed the  kin,  and  territorial  proximity  has  supplanted 
the  proximity  of  blood. 

This  is  the  first  great  revolution  in  human  affairs 
with  which  we  have  to  deal.  For  causes,  at  which  we 
can  only  guess,  the  wanderers  weary  of  wandering  and 
make  for  themselves  that  novel  thing,  a  home.     They 

B 


i8        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

settle  on  the  soil,  and  the  soil  grips  them.  Their 
abode  becomes  fixed,  and  so  does  their  horizon.  They 
build  huts  and  they  plough  the  land :  their  property  is 
no  longer  movable,  and  they  are  tied  to  the  spot  on 
which  they  live.  Their  bonds  are  with  those  who  live 
near :  these  may  be  kinsmen,  and  no  doubt  are  at  first. 
But  they  need  not  be :  the  stranger  within  the  gates 
becomes  neighbour,  and  the  bonds  with  distant  kins- 
men relax.  Territorial  proximity  replaces  that  of 
blood  as  the  basis  of  human  society.  Then  the  genius 
loci  casts  its  spell  over  the  immigrants  :  it  includes  the 
effects  of  climate  and  the  results  of  previous  occu- 
pation. The  immigrants  into  Celtic  and  Roman 
Britain  will  not  be  the  same  as  if  they  had  remained 
in  Teutonic  Germany.  The  Ostrogoth  who  conquers 
Italy  becomes  an  Italian,  the  Visigoth  who  conquers 
Spain  becomes  a  Spaniard :  the  Frank  who  settles  in 
France  becomes  a  Frenchman,  while  he  who  remains 
at  home  continues  a  German :  the  Norman  who  con- 
quers England  becomes  English,  and  he  who  conquers 
Sicily,  Sicilian.  Subtler  still  is  the  influence  of  climate 
and  geographical  conditions ;  and  hence  the  value  of 
historical  geography.  We  have  been  told — I  know 
not  with  how  much  truth — that  the  Yankee  is  develop- 
ing the  same  features,  the  high  cheek-bones,  the 
prominent  nose,  the  straight  lank  hair,  and  even  some- 
what of  the  colour  of  the  American  Indians  whom  he 
displaced.  We  can  see  under  our  eyes  the  process  of 
intellectual  and  moral  differentiation.  There  are  three 
Englishmen  :  one  stays  at  home,  one  goes  to  Australia, 
and   one  to   Canada.      Twenty   years   pass,  one  has 


NATIONALITY  19 

become  a  Canadian,  another  an  Australian,  and  the 
first  alone  remains  an  Englishman.  The  differentia- 
tion, once  begun,  proceeds  at  a  growing  pace ;  and  the 
task  of  reconciling  the  new  nationalities  with  the  old 
Imperial  unity  is  the  hardest  problem  of  politics. 

It  is  this  association  of  men  with  different  parts  of 
the  earth's  surface  which  begins  the  process  of  differ- 
entiating modern  nations  frojn  one  another,  and  drives 
vertical  national  lines  down  through  the  horizontal 
cosmopolitan  lines.  But  the  common  ideas  which  the 
immigrants  take  to  the  various  localities  combine  at 
first  with  the  influence  of  the  soil  to  produce  similar 
institutions.  Feudalism  is  more  or  less  common  to  the 
whole  of  Western  Europe :  the  soil  becomes  the  basis 
and  badge  of  social  position  in  France  as  well  as  in 
England.  Everywhere  the  territorial  supersedes  the 
personal  relationship,  and  the  kings  become  owners  of 
land  rather  than  lords  of  people.  Alfred  the  Great 
is  not  King  of  Wessex,  but  of  the  West  Saxons,  and 
William  the  Conqueror  is  King  of  the  English,  not 
King  of  England.  To  call  him  King  of  England  is  as 
wrong  as  to  call  the  Kaiser  Emperor  of  Germany : 
for  the  territorial  sovereign  in  Saxony  is  not  Kaiser 
Wilhelm,  but  Konig  Friedrich  August.  It  is  only 
with  John  that  the  King  of  the  English  becomes  King 
of  England,  and  the  substitution  of  the  territorial  for 
the  personal  sovereignty  is  officially  recognised. 

The  change  is  expressed  in  many  ways.  In  Eng- 
land the  *  hundred '  and  the  '  tithing,'  originally 
groups  of  persons,  become  geographical  terms.  In 
France  public   functions   are    transformed   into  local 


20        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

divisions :  the  bailliage^  originally  the  office  of  bailli^ 
is  soon  a  portion  of  territory.  The  county,  at  first  the 
office  of  count,  acquires  a  geographical  meaning.  Law 
itself  becomes  local :  it  had  been  as  mobile  as  pro- 
perty, and  each  tribe  carried  with  it  its  personal  law 
wherever  it  went.  The  Ostrogoths  and  Lombards 
carried  Teutonic  law  into  Italy,  the  Visigoths  into 
Spain,  the  Franks  into  Gaul,  and  the  Angles  and 
Saxons  into  Britain.  But  it  comes  under  local  influ- 
ence, splits  into  hundreds  of  local  customs,  and 
becomes  territorial.  The  law  of  persons  becomes  the 
law  of  the  land.  Men  no  longer  carry  about  their 
own  legal  atmosphere:  they  have  to  breathe  that  of 
the  land  whither  they  go. 

This  *  territorialism,'  as  it  is  called,  is  the  great  bar 
to  national  unity.  Indeed,  national  unity  is  a  con- 
ception far  beyond  the  reach  of  men's  minds  in  early 
times.  How  do  we  know  that  we  are  a  nation  and 
an  Empire  ?  Well,  we  have  the  Daily  Mail  to  tell  us 
so,  and  The  Times  and  other  Atlases  with  maps  all 
coloured  red.  But  the  Anglo-Saxons  had  no  half- 
penny or  any  other  papers  to  tell  them  how  great  they 
were,  or  how  little :  they  could  not  read  or  write,  and 
they  would  quite  have  failed  to  understand  a  map. 
They  had  ceased  to  wander  as  tribes,  and  had  not  yet 
begun  to  travel  as  individuals.  All  these  means  for 
the  expansion  of  men's  consciousness  were  wanting. 
Their  horizon  was  limited  by  what  they  saw,  and  not 
expanded  by  what  they  imagined.  Their  patriotism 
centred  round  the  parish  pump  or  its  equivalent.  The 
'best'  men  of  the  township  and  the  hundred  travelled 


NATIONALITY  21 

further  afield,  and  had  some  conception  of  tribal  unity 
as  represented  by  the  shire-moot :  but  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  never  got  beyond  provincial  patriotism,  and 
the  old  English  monarchy  was  never  more  than  a 
federation  of  tribal  commonwealths,  loosely  bound  to- 
gether for  purposes  of  mutual  defence.  The  Norman 
Conquest  first  imposed  some  sort  of  national  unity, 
and  Henry  ll.'s  Curia  Regis  some  sort  of  national 
law  :  but  the  consciousness  of  this  unity  was  for  ages 
limited  to  the  king  and  his  entourage,  to  the  Curia 
Regis  and  the  royal  officials.  Even  after  Parliament 
appears,  the  greatest  difficulty  is  to  make  it  national, 
and  to  bring  home  to  the  constituencies  a  sense  of 
their  national  duties.  Representation  was  regarded  as 
a  burden  right  down  to  the  sixteenth  century,  both 
by  electors  and  elected.  On  one  occasion  the  elected 
knights  for  Oxfordshire  fled  the  country  to  escape  the 
honour.  The  sheriff  raised  the  hue  and  cry  and  pur- 
sued them  like  thieves  and  murderers.  One  was 
caught  and  bound  over  to  appear  at  Westminster  when 
Parliament  should  assemble,  but  the  other  escaped  ; 
and  it  was  the  Tudors  who  first  inoculated  Parliament 
with  a  really  national  consciousness. 

Local  interests  are  potent  in  the  Middle  Ages :  they 
hampered  the  growth  of  national  feeling,  but  they 
were  less  incompatible  than  national  unity  with  a 
wider,  if  more  shadowy,  universal  unity.  There  is 
more  room  for  local  option  in  a  universal  than  in  a 
national  church :  and  the  idea  of  universal  empire 
was  only  possible  before  the  era  of  national  consolida- 
tion.    It  is  the  consolidation   of  national   unity,   the 


22        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

expansion  of  a  local  and  provincial  into  a  national 
patriotism,  which  proves  fatal  to  both  the  concrete 
expressions  of  unity  of  the  world :  to  the  Empire  and 
to  the  Papacy.  England  led  the  way  in  this  process 
of  nationalisation,  because  Nature  had  done  most  of 
the  work  by  giving  England  frontiers  which  no  man 
could  change.  It  was  easy  to  see  the  geographical 
limits  of  English  nationality :  it  was  not  so  easy  to  trace 
those  of  France  or  Germany,  and  even  now  they  are 
not  defined  beyond  cavil.  England  was  almost  a 
water-tight  compartment,  and  within  it  the  elements 
fused  more  speedily  than  over  a  wider  expanse.  The 
cosmopolitan  connections  of  its  Angevin  kings  intro- 
duced, it  is  true,  alien  elements,  Savoyards,  Poitevins 
Gascons :  but  the  reaction  against  their  dominion  in 
the  thirteenth  century  developed  English  national 
consciousness,  just  as  the  English  attempt  to  conquer 
France  in  the  Hundred  Years'  War  provoked  the 
growth  of  French  nationality. 

This  movement  made  the  fourteenth  century  the 
first  epoch  of  English  nationalism.  It  has  been  called 
the  *  age  of  the  commons ' :  that  is  because  it  is  the 
age  of  the  nation.  Its  battles  are  fought  with  a 
national  weapon,  the  long  bow  (since  become  the 
national  weapon  of  the  Americans):  its  wars  are 
financed  by  the  national  wealth  of  the  wool-trade : 
its  armies  are  formed,  not  of  feudal  knights  or  foreign 
mercenaries,  but  by  national  and  voluntary  enlistment : 
and  its  navy  begins  at  Sluys  the  national  achievements 
at  sea  which  roll  on  in  triumph  to  Trafalgar.  Political 
songs  show  a  popular  interest  in  public  affairs,  and 


NATIONALITY  23 

popular  feeling  is  voiced  in  the  poems  of  Chaucer  and 
Langland,  in  the  tracts  and  translations  of  Wycliffe. 
The  House  of  Commons  emerges,  and  asserts  its 
control  over  legislation,  taxation,  and  administration. 
*What  touches  all  must  be  approved  of  all'  is  the 
maxim :  and  although  its  application  was  partial, 
although  the  House  of  Commons  is  an  aristocracy, 
Parliament  is  at  least  more  national  than  it  had  been 
before.  The  advent  of  the  middle  class  has  begun, 
and  middle  classes  are  more  national  than  feudal 
barons :  national  consciousness  has  reached  the  heart, 
and  fired  the  imagination  of  the  burgess  and  the 
gentleman,  though  it  may  not  yet  have  touched  the 
stolid  mind  of  the  peasant. 

England  has  begun  to  differ  from  other  countries, 
and  different  environment  and  institutions  will  produce 
different  habits  of  mind,  and  eventually  a  different 
national  character.  But  the  process  is  slow  and 
gradual :  the  characteristics  are  not  all  acquired  at 
once.  The  Church  in  England  is  still  much  the  same 
as  the  Church  anywhere  else  in  Western  Christendom. 
But  there  are  signs  of  the  coming  break.  At  the 
Councils  of  Constance  and  Basle  in  the  first  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  the  reform  movement  fails 
because  the  Papacy  can  play  off  national  jealousies. 
England  and  Germany  side  against  France,  Spain,  and 
Italy ;  and  foreshadow  the  religious  divisions  of  the 
following  century.  The  Papacy  itself  becomes  im- 
possible as  lord  of  the  Church  universal,  because  the 
local  and  pagan  spirit  of  Italy  has  laid  unclean  and 
impious  hands  on  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  and  Wycliffe 


24        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

had  taught  that  dominion  depended  on  Grace.  The 
storm  came  in  the  sixteenth  century :  the  national 
State  took  hold  of  the  Church  and  made  it  national 
too.  This,  in  its  turn,  was  a  fresh  cause  of  the  differ- 
entiation of  national  character.  Englishmen,  nurtured 
on  Cranmer's  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  on  Foxe's  Book 
of  Martyrs ,  and  on  the  Geneva  version  of  the  Bible, 
grew  very  different  from  what  they  would  have  been, 
had  they  continued  to  assimilate  the  Vulgate,  the 
Roman  breviary,  and  the  Legenda  Aurea.  English 
Puritanism  came  into  the  world,  and  no  factor  has 
been  more  potent  in  moulding  English  destinies  and 
character. 

One  indirect  and  undesigned  effect  was  the  founda- 
tion of  Greater  Britain  over  the  seas :  and  this  again 
has  expanded  national  character.  Doubtless  there 
was  evil  as  well  as  good  in  the  influence  which  the 
possession  of  Empire  had  exerted  over  the  national 
mind.  Nabobs  and  corruption  invaded  the  British 
Parliament,  at  the  same  time  that  its  sense  of 
responsibility  was  broadened  and  deepened  by  the 
growth  of  obligations  to  other  races  and  inferior 
civilisations ;  and  South  African  wealth  has  not  been 
an  unmixed  blessing  in  English  politics.  But  it  would 
never  have  been  possible  for  us  to  call  ourselves  an 
imperial  race,  had  we  not  possessed  an  Empire :  and 
that  Empire  we  did  not  seek  with  deliberate  intent. 
Religious  enthusiasm  founded  the  American  colonies  ; 
commercial  enterprise  brought  back  India  in  its  train. 
The  ambition  to  make  the  British  Empire  the  greatest 
secular   agency   for   good   is   perhaps   the    noblest  of 


NATIONALITY  25 

national  characteristics  :  but  it  is  the  latest-born  child 
of  national  history,  and  was  not  the  cause  of  Empire. 
And  so  we  come  round  to  our  original  thesis :  nation- 
ality and  national  character  are  the  results  as  well  as, 
if  not  rather  than,  the  causes  of  history.  We  did  not 
start  with  a  national  character :  we  developed  one 
under  the  stress  of  circumstances.  Environment  bred 
certain  acts  and  classes  of  acts ;  acts  developed  into 
habits  and  customs  ;  and  habits  and  custom  made  and 
moulded  our  national  character. 


4^ 


26        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


II 

THE  ADVENT  OF  THE   MIDDLE  CLASS 

A  FEW  months  ago  a  head-master,  who  was  also  a 
classical  scholar,  was  giving  his  views  on  the  teaching 
of  history ;  and  he  laid  it  down  that  any  classical 
scholar  could  teach  history  if  he  were  given  a  week's 
notice.  That  dictum  reminds  me  of  another  opinion, 
which  was  expressed  by  an  undergraduate  :  he  re- 
marked that  the  great  thing  about  history  was  that 
it  required  no  thinking.  Now  I  think  we  must  com- 
bine these  two  answers  in  order  to  understand  them  ; 
and  we  may  assume  that,  in  the  opinion  of  these  two 
experts,  it  is  because  history  requires  no  thinking  that 
any  classical  scholar  can  teach  it  after  a  week's  notice. 
The  two  answers  taken  together  also  explain  a  fact, 
which  has  always  puzzled  me  when  examining  for 
Matriculation,  School  Leaving,  and  Oxford  Local  Ex- 
aminations; and  it  now  appears  that  the  appalling 
ignorance  of  history  displayed  by  candidates  may  be 
due  to  the  circumstance  that  they  had  been  taught 
by  classical  scholars  getting  up  history  at  a  week's 
notice. 

Now,  I  have  no  doubt  that  what  this  head-master 
meant  by  history  can  be  taught  by  a  classical  scholar 
at  a  week's  notice ;  because  that  kind  of  history  does 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    27 

require  no  thinking.  To  him  history  is  obviously  a 
matter  of  dates  and  facts  to  be  learned  by  heart,  and 
nothing  more.  But  if  we  were  to  ask  him  why  there 
was  a  Renaissance  or  a  Reformation,  why  England 
is  English  and  Scotland  is  Scottish,  why  the  Spanish 
Empire  decayed  and  the  British  Empire  developed ; 
if  one  were  even  to  put  some  simpler  requests,  such 
as  'contrast  the  nature  of  the  evidence  upon  which 
ancient  and  modern  history  depend ' ;  or,  *  compare 
the  value  of  the  chronicle  and  the  record  as  sources 
of  history,'  I  think  we  should  have  to  wait  some- 
what longer  than  a  week  before  we  got  a  satisfac- 
tory answer,  even  from  a  classical  scholar.  I  even 
doubt  whether  a  week's  research  would  enable  him 
to  state  the  nature  of  the  difficulties  which  faced 
Oliver  Cromwell  or  explain  the  reasons  of  his  com- 
parative failure  and  success.  Real  history  has  to 
deal  with  the  problems  which  have  baffled  statesmen 
and  thinkers  throughout  the  ages,  and  the  mental 
equipment  required  for  the  adequate  discharge  of  that 
function  is  seldom  found,  and  is  only  acquired  at  the 
cost  of  infinite  patience  and  toil.  To  pretend  that  any 
classical  scholar  can  acquire  it  in  a  week  is  simply 
to  evince  an  abysmal  ignorance  of  what  history  really 
is  or  really  should  be. 

Now,  there  are  three  or  four  different  kinds  of 
questions  which  every  student  of  history  is  called  upon 
to  answer,  some  of  them  elementary,  some  profound : 
there  is  the  question  when  ?  and  the  question  where  ? 
the  question  how?  and  the  question  why?  The 
question  when  ?  is  the  most  elementary  and  the  least 


28        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

informing  of  all  historical  interrogations.  That  may 
sound  strange  to  those  who  are  in  the  habit  of  regard- 
ing history  as  mainly  a  matter  of  dates.  But  dates  per 
se  are  almost  useless ;  by  themselves,  they  are  merely 
mental  lumber.  It  may  be  said  that  the  knowledge 
of  a  single  accurate  date  has  a  certain  educational 
value  deriving  from  its  exactitude ;  and  an  extravagant 
importance  is  often  attached  to  children's  knowing 
that  the  battle  of  Hastings  was  fought  in  1066  and  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  in  181 5.  It  may  be  some  corrective 
of  this  view,  and  some  inducement  to  temper  justice 
with  mercy  in  dealing  with  infants  ignorant  of  these 
details,  if  we  remember  that,  as  a  matter  of  sheer 
chronological  fact,  the  battle  of  Hastings  was  not 
fought  in  1066,  nor  that  of  Waterloo  in  181 5.  For 
the  Christian  era  is  at  least  four  years  out  of  the  true 
reckoning,  and  all  events  dated  anno  domini  are  to 
that  extent  wrong.  Numberless  accepted  dates  are  still 
more  erroneous.  You  may  remember  that  elaborate 
preparations  were  made  in  1901  to  celebrate  the 
thousandth  anniversary  of  the  death  of  Alfred  the 
Great ;  on  the  eve  of  the  celebration  a  profound  but 
mischievous  scholar,  without  any  consideration  for  the 
feelings  of  the  organisers  of  this  millenary  demonstra- 
tion, proved  that  Alfred  really  died  in  899  or  900  at 
the  latest,  and  that  the  demonstrators  were  two  years 
after  the  fair. 

The  same  uncertainty  exists  with  regard  to  nearly 
all  dates  before  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  a  good 
many  afterwards  ;  even  so  late  as  the  eleventh  century 
the   Anglo-Saxon   chronicle,  almost  a   contemporary 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    29 

authority,  is  some  years  out  in  the  date  it  assigns  to 
Canute's  visit  to  Rome.  So  that  whatever  value 
attaches  to  the  committing  to  memory  of  these  dates 
must  be  independent  of  their  scientific  exactitude. 
Dates  in  fact  are  valuable  not  in  themselves  but  only 
in  so  far  as  they  enable  us  to  determine  the  sequence 
of  events,  for  the  sequences  are  an  indispensable  factor 
in  ascertaining  the  causes  of  history.  The  mere  re- 
petition of  dates  without  reference  to  their  use  and 
meaning  involves  a  repellent  waste  of  time  and  temper. 

The  question  where  ?  is  really  more  important  than 
the  question  when  ? ;  and  it  is  a  much  more  searching 
test  of  a  student's  understanding  of  history  to  inquire 
where  the  battle  of  Blenheim  was  fought,  than  when 
it  was  fought.  Yet  I  am  afraid  that  for  every  ten,  who 
could  answer  the  second  question,  scarce  one  could 
be  found  to  answer  the  first.  And  among  the  reforms 
to  be  effected  in  the  methods  of  teaching  history 
none  is  more  urgent  than  a  proper  appreciation  of 
historical  geography,  and  a  proper  use  of  historical 
wall-maps. 

The  next  question  is  that  of  how  ?,  and  this  is  the 
subject  of  nearly  all  our  histories.  Few  students  have 
yet  set  themselves  systematically  to  answer  the  most 
difficult  and  most  profound  of  all  historical  questions, 
the  question  why?  We  take  the  things  for  granted, 
and  are  content  with  the  outward  manifestation,  with- 
out troubling  ourselves  about  the  soul  of  things  which 
causes  those  manifestations.  Columbus,  we  know, 
discovered  America  in  1492;  we  accept  that  as  a 
sufficient   statement   and   proceed   to   treat   it  as   the 


30   FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

origin  of  New  World  history,  and  as  one  of  the 
principal  factors  which  differentiate  the  modern  from 
the  medieval  world.  But  why  did  Columbus  discover 
America  ?  why  was  America  discovered  towards  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth,  and  not  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
or  sixteenth  centuries?  Why  does  modern,  as  distinct 
from  medieval,  history  begin  where  it  does,  and  not 
at  any  other  time?  This  is  the  sort  of  problem  we 
should  try  to  solve ;  compared  with  it,  questions  of 
when,  where,  and  how  are  almost  trivial.  History 
can,  perhaps,  be  little  more  than  a  story  for  children, 
but  there  is  a  time  when  sober  students  should  put 
away  childish  things,  or  at  least  cease  to  regard  them 
as  a  final  object  of  intellectual  effort. 

Now,  it  is  not  possible  to  solve  these  problems 
completely.  History  is  not  an  exact  science.  Nothing 
that  is  real  and  concrete  can  be  exact.  Mathematics 
are  exact,  but  only  because  they  deal  with  abstractions. 
Two  may  be  equal  to  two  in  arithmetic,  but  they  are 
generally  unequal  in  real  life ;  no  two  men  are  exactly 
equal  to  two  other  men.  The  same  may  be  predicted 
about  other  live  and  real  things ;  and  there  is  no 
necessary  correlation  between  two  pence  and  two 
politicians,  except  the  abstract  numerical  identity. 
There  is  always  a  gulf  between  the  thing  and  the 
mathematical  expression  of  it.  By  mathematics  you 
can  prove  that  Achilles,  moving  ten  times  faster  than 
a  tortoise,  never  overtakes  it,  if  the  tortoise  has  ten 
yards  start;  for  while  Achilles  does  ten  yards,  the 
tortoise  does  one ;  while  Achilles  does  one,  the  tortoise 
does  a  tenth,  and  so  on.     And,  however  minutely  you 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    31 

subdivide  the  distance  between  the  two,  you  cannot 
get  rid  of  it  by  mathematical  means.  But  in  real 
life  Achilles  disposes  of  the  difficulty  without  much 
trouble.  A  line  is  said  to  be  length  without  breadth, 
and  Euclid  does  not  say  that  this  is  absurd.  But  it  is  ; 
for  a  line  without  breadth  cannot  be  seen,  drawn,  or 
imagined,  and  certainly  never  existed.  The  mathe- 
matical plane  is  unreal ;  to  reach  it  you  must  leave  the 
realm  of  reality.  When  once  you  have  risen  to  this 
exalted  level,  you  may  be  as  abstract,  as  absolute,  and 
as  exact  as  you  please.  But  the  truth  that  deals  with 
concrete  things  is  always  relative ;  absolute  truth  is  an 
abstract  ideal  not  attained  in  practical  human  affairs, 
and  therefore  not  attainable  in  their  history.  History 
deals  with  an  infinite  number  of  variant  facts,  just  as 
grammar  does  with  an  infinite  number  of  variant  uses  ; 
generalisations  deduced  from  these  facts,  like  gram- 
matical rules  deduced  from  these  uses,  are  all  incom- 
plete, and  partially  false  ;  there  are  exceptions  to  every 
rule. 

With  this  reminder  of  the  tentative  and  halting 
nature  of  all  answers  to  the  question  why  ?  of  history, 
I  want  to  suggest  some  reasons  why  modern  history, 
as  distinct  from  medieval,  begins  towards  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  I  am  obliged  to  insert  the 
qualifying  clause  '  as  distinct  from  mediaeval  history,' 
because  our  terminology  is  very  loose.  Commonly 
modern  is  merely  distinguished  from  ancient  history, 
and  includes  medieval ;  and  there  is  infinite  variety  of 
dates  at  which  the  commencement  of  modern  history 
has  been  placed.     Some  say  that  modern  history  does 


32        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

not  really  begin  until  the  French  Revolution  ;  some 
date  it  from  Luther's  Ninety-five  Theses,  some  from 
Charles  vill/s  invasion  of  Italy  in  1494,  some  from 
Columbus's  discovery  of  the  New  World.  Others  go 
back  to  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne  in  800,  to  the 
death  of  Romulus  Augustulus  in  476,  to  the  battle  of 
Actium  in  B.C.  31,  or  even  to  the  death  of  Alexander 
the  Great  in  B.C.  323.  Others,  again,  insisting  on  the 
unity  of  history,  deprecate  any  division  into  ancient 
and  modern  as  artificial.  But  man  cannot  recognise 
in  practice  the  unity  of  Time  ;  even  a  lecture  must 
have  an  artificial  beginning,  though  it  may  seem  to 
have  no  natural  end.  So,  in  history,  one  must  start 
somewhere,  remembering  always  that  our  starting- 
points  are  artificial  ;  and  the  line — blurred  and  waver- 
ing though  it  be — between  medieval  and  modern 
history  is  as  good  a  starting-point  as  any. 

Lord  Acton  makes  a  bolder  assertion :  to  him  this 
line  is  clear.  '  The  modern  age,'  he  writes,  *  did  not 
proceed  from  the  medieval  by  normal  succession,  with 
outward  tokens  of  legitimate  descent.  Unheralded, 
it  founded  a  new  order  of  things,  under  a  law  of  inno- 
vation, sapping  the  ancient  reign  of  continuity.'^ 
With  all  due  deference  to  so  high  an  authority,  I 
believe  this  to  be  an  exaggeration.  To  my  mind,  at 
least,  the  history  of  the  world  presents  itself  as  a  series 
of  dissolving  views,  rather  than  as  a  succession  of 
separate  lantern  slides  ;  new  light  dawns  on  the  screen 
before  the  old  fades  away.  Causes  are  none  the  less 
real  because  they  have  no  fuglemen;  the  present  is 

*  Lord  Acton,  Inaugural  Lecture  1895,  p.  8. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    33 

none  the  less  rooted  in  the  past  because  roots  are 
commonly  concealed,  and  the  foundations  of  modern, 
were  laid  in  medieval,  history. 

Like  most  natural  processes,  the  transition  was 
silent,  gradual,  and  in  its  origin,  imperceptible.  Who 
can  say  precisely  when  the  new  bud  begins  to  sap  the 
old  leaf  on  the  tree  ?  Two  generations  ago  geologists, 
impressed  by  the  vast  and  sudden  inequalities  which 
make  and  mar  the  beauty  of  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
imagined  in  the  early  history  of  the  globe  a  series  of 
terrific  upheavals.  Only  sudden  and  tremendous 
catastrophes  could  account  for  precipitous  phenomena. 
Their  reason  was  too  much  dominated  by  the  outward 
manifestation ;  and  erroneous  notions  of  the  earth's 
age  led  them  to  compress  within  a  moment  the 
changes  of  an  aeon.  A  more  scientific  spirit  ascribes 
these  features  to  silent  causes  working  slowly  through 
a  multitude  of  ages ;  and  recourse  has  been  had  to  the 
older,  truer  view  that  natura  nihil  facit  per  saltum. 

It  is  just  as  true  in  history.  There  have  been 
changes,  sudden  in  their  outward  manifestations.  The 
French  Revolution  is  a  more  striking  example  of  them 
than  the  transition  from  medieval  to  modern  history. 
But  even  the  French  Revolution  was  the  summation  of 
causes,  which  had  been  working  for  ages ;  even  here  it 
is  true  to  say  that  natura  nihil  facit  per  saltum.  The 
French  Revolution  was  a  high  jump  rather  than  a  long 
jump ;  and  the  French  people,  in  spite  of  their  deter- 
mination to  cut  themselves  off  the  soil  on  which  they 
had  grown,  came  down  from  their  leap  not  very  far 
from  where  they  started.     The  real  progress  of  man 

C 


34        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

often  varies  inversely  with  the  noise  it  makes  in  the 
world,  and  with  the  attention  it  receives  from  historians. 
The  outlines  of  modern  history  had  been  fixed  before 
men  were  conscious  that  the  medieval  world  was 
passing  away ;  events  do  not  move  as  a  rule  until  the 
direction  which  they  will  take  has  been  roughly  deter- 
mined. Men  remain  where  they  are  until  it  has  been 
suggested  to  them  that  they  would  be  better  some- 
where else  ;  and  this  suggestion  is  more  important 
than  the  mere  mechanical  movement  of  men  in  the 
direction  suggested. 

Answers  to  questions  why?  can  only  therefore  be 
found  in  the  antecedents  of  the  developments  under 
consideration ;  and  if  we  want  to  know  why  the 
Reformation  took  place  in  the  sixteenth  century,  why 
America  was  discovered  in  1492,  why  learning  came 
to  its  new  birth  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  we 
must  search  the  records  of  preceding  generations.  No 
period  has  been  more  undeservedly  neglected.  Even 
the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  contains  fewer 
names  from  the  fifteenth  than  from  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  thrice  as  many  sixteenth  as  fifteenth 
century  worthies  are  buried  in  its  covers.  The  outward 
manifestations  of  the  sixteenth  century  have  attracted 
the  popular  gaze :  it  is  time  that  students  paid  more 
attention  to  the  predestinating  causes  of  the  fourteenth 
and  early  fifteenth.  It  is  time  that  we  ceased  to 
regard  the  Renaissance,  the  discovery  of  the  New 
World,  the  Reformation,  and  the  development  of 
nationality  as  the  merely  first  links  of  chains  sus- 
pended in  mid-air,  and  began  to  regard  them  rather 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    35 

as  links  indissolubly  bound  to  old  chains  which  stretch 
back  far  into  the  past.  They  were  goals  as  well  as 
starting-points ;  they  sum  up  old  series  as  well  as 
begin  new  ones ;  and  my  immediate  object  is  to  attach 
some  parts  of  modern  to  medieval  history,  and  to 
illustrate  the  greatest  of  all  historic  truths,  namely, 
that  the  present  is  bound  up  with  the  past. 

I  have  already  attempted  to  show  how  the  idea  of 
nationality,  growing  up  during  the  Middle  Ages,  helped 
to  differentiate  modern  from  medieval  history.  That 
is  perhaps  the  weightiest  factor  in  this  revolution. 
We  will  now  take  one  or  two  others,  and  first  ask  why 
it  was  that  America  was  discovered  towards  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  A  short  answer  would  be 
the  paradoxical  assertion  that  Columbus  discovered 
America  in  1492  or  thereabouts  because  the  Turks  are 
an  obstructive  people.  The  connection  is  not  quite 
obvious ;  but  obvious  connections  are  always  super- 
ficial, and  this  connection  is  more  profound.  The 
Germans  have  a  proverb  Der  Mensch  ist  was  er  isst — 
man  is  what  he  eats.  It  might  be  taken  for  a  motto 
by  those  people  who  believe  in  the  economic  interpre- 
tation of  history  ;  and,  while  that  interpretation  has  been 
pushed  to  extremes,  it  undoubtedly  contains  a  kernel 
of  much  neglected  truth.  No  age  and  no  nation  has 
been  quite  independent  of  its  food ;  even  fasting 
anchorites  required  interludes  of  eating  to  keep  them 
going  in  their  fasts,  and  death  by  starvation  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  regarded  as  the  logical  crown  of 
holy  life.  In  the  Middle  Ages  each  country  was  more 
or  less  self-supporting  so  far  as  necessaries  were  con- 


36  •      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

cerned ;  but  for  an  ever-increasing  number  of  luxuries 
they  were  dependent  upon  foreign  trade.  The  great 
medieval  trade  routes  passed  from  East  to  West  and 
West  to  East  through  the  Levant.  Now,  so  long  as  the 
Levant  was  shared  between  the  Byzantine  Empire,  the 
Italians,  and  the  Saracens — a  cultured  and  tolerant 
race — there  was  no  great  obstacle  in-  the  way  of  this 
trade.  But  in  the  fourteenth  and  early  fifteenth 
centuries  the  Turks,  a  destructive  race,  came  and 
*  squatted '  on  these  trade  routes.  Western  Europe 
soon  began  to  feel  the  pinch ;  the  arteries  through 
which  its  trade  flowed  were  choked  ;  and,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  men  began  to  seek  new  routes  to  the 
East — routes  by  which  the  interrupted  communications 
might  be  restored. 

This  was  the  motive  of  all  the  geographical  ex- 
pansion of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  discovery  of  a 
New  World,  the  foundation  of  colonies,  the  develop- 
ment of  sea-power  were  incidental  results.  Each 
nation  was  merely  intent  upon  opening  up  a  new 
channel  through  which  the  wealth  from  the  Indies — 
that  is,  of  course,  the  East  Indies — might  flow  into  its 
coffers.  Even  this  commercial  motive  was  perhaps  un- 
conscious ;  the  new  idea  invariably  appears  in  an 
ancient  guise,  and  the  earliest  commercial  voyages 
may  have  been  undertaken  under  the  impression  that 
they  were  crusades.  Portugal  was  the  first  to  start, 
and  from  its  geographical  position  it  inevitably  sought 
to  find  a  route  round  the  south  of  Africa.  Prince 
Henry  the  Navigator — we  should  now  call  him  rather 
a  company-promoter — was  the  pioneer  of  these  en- 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    37 

deavours ;  and  step  by  step  the  exploration  of  the 
African  coast  was  pushed  further  and  further  south. 
For  sixty  years  from  1426  this  process  went  on.  It 
was  no  single  event,  and  during  this  period  the  com- 
mercial motive  cast  off  the  crusading  shell.  But 
Africa  was  bigger  than  men  thought ;  it  extended 
hundreds  of  miles  further  south  than  Prince  Henry 
imagined ;  and  before  Diaz  doubled  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  in  i486,  it  had  probably  occurred  to  others  that 
there  might  be  a  shorter  route  to  the  Indies.  This 
was  the  idea  of  Christopher  Columbus  ;  he  sailed  due 
west,  discovered  the  West  Indies,  and  to  the  day  of 
his  death  was  unconscious  of  the  magnitude  of  his 
achievement.  He  thought  that,  instead  of  discovering 
a  New  World,  he  had  merely  turned  the  flank  of  the 
Turk  and  found  a  fresh  route  to  the  East  of  the  Old 
World. 

Other  nations  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Portuguese, 
and  the  fruits  of  Columbus's  discoveries  fell  to  the 
Spaniards,  under  the  auspices  of  whose  monarchs  his 
voyages  had  been  made.  But,  while  Spain  developed 
an  empire  in  the  West,  Albuquerque  founded  one  for 
Portugal  in  the  East.  England  and  France  were  later 
and  less  fortunate  in  their  early  adventures.  Their  eyes 
turned  north  rather  than  south,  and  many  English  lives 
were  lost  in  the  Arctic  Ocean.  Englishmen  went  forth, 
not  to  find  the  North  Pole,  but  first  a  North-east  and 
then  a  North-west  passage  to  the  Indies ;  and  though 
this  quest  was  hopeless,  yet  British  dominion  in  Canada 
was  an  indirect  result  of  their  enterprise.  That  was  still 
in  the  womb  of  the  distant  future,  but  other  effects  of 


38        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

these  discoveries  were  no  less  great  and  more  im- 
mediate. The  world  was  suddenly  expanded  and  its 
centre  shifted.  Hitherto  the  world  had  been  little 
more  than  the  countries  round  the  Mediterranean. 
Jewish  religion,  Greek  culture,  Roman  Empire  had 
represented  the  sum  of  human  achievement,  and  they 
all  came  from  the  borders  of  an  inland  sea.  Great 
Britain  was  the  Ultima  Thule,  hovering  on  the  rim  of 
outer  darkness ;  and  its  people  were  still  accounted 
barbarians  by  the  polished  people  of  Italy.  Rome 
was  the  hub  of  the  universe,  Venice  and  Genoa  the 
emporiums  of  its  trade,  and  the  seats  of  its  naval 
power,  and  Florence  the  home  of  its  art  and  letters. 
All  men's  eyes  looked  towards  Italy ;  but  now  there 
came  an  aversion  of  gaze,  and  men's  looks  were  turned 
outwards.  The  Mediterranean  was  deposed  from  its 
proud  position.  Trade  and  politics  became  oceanic 
and  not  pelagic  ;  the  ports  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic 
were  no  longer  outposts  on  the  bounds  of  a  waste, 
estranging  sea,  but  outlets  towards  a  vast  New  World. 
The  centre  was  shifted  to  the  rim ;  in  time  Liverpool 
and  Hamburg  will  take  the  place  of  Venice  and  Genoa. 
Medieval  Empire  and  Papacy  shivered  at  the  blow ; 
the  inheritors  of  the  new  world,  Spain,  Portugal, 
France,  England,  had  no  dependence  on  the  Empire, 
and  the  New  World  could  not  be  forced  into  the  strait- 
waistcoat  of  the  old.  They  still,  it  is  true,  depended 
on  the  Papacy;  Columbus  had  not  called  into  exis- 
tence a  New  World  to  redress  the  religious  balance  of 
the  Old.  The  discovery  of  America  was  not  a  Pro- 
testant enterprise  any  more  than  the  Bible  is  a  Non- 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    39 

conformist  publication  ;  and  for  more  than  a  century 
after  Columbus's  achievement  the  New  World  was  a 
Roman  Catholic  preserve,  with  a  few  Protestant  wasps 
buzzing  around  it.  Great  changes  take  long  to  sink 
into  men's  minds,  and  few  realised  the  importance  of 
these  discoveries  until  generations  after  they  had 
been  made.  But  the  expansion  of  the  world  slowly 
produced  an  expansion  of  men's  minds ;  and  the 
ecclesiastical  and  theological  system,  adapted  to  men 
who  believed  that  the  sun  went  round  the  earth,  and 
that  stars  twinkled  solely  for  the  benefit  or  amuse- 
ment of  the  dwellers  in  Western  Europe,  began  to 
rend,  when  stretched  to  cover  the  science  of  the 
sixteenth  century ;  just  as  some  day  perhaps  current 
beliefs  will  be  modified  by  the  realisation  that  the 
earth  is  not  the  centre  of  the  universe,  and  that  pro- 
bably there  are  billions  of  planets  more  important  than 
that  on  which  we  live. 

The  geographical  discoveries  of  Columbus,  Vasco  da 
Gama,  Magellan,  the  Cabots,  and  the  rest,  were  only 
the  most  startling  development  of  those  economic 
changes,  which  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  transformed  the  medieval  into  the  modern 
world.  They  were  external  and  obvious  events; 
there  were  others  less  obvious  but  no  less  important. 
These  may  almost  all  be  summed  up  in  one  phrase — 
the  advent  of  the  middle  classes.  Nearly  every  move- 
ment of  this  period  is  a  symptom  of  this  middle-class 
development.  The  Renaissance  represents  its  intel- 
lectual aspect ;  art,  science,  and  letters  had  hitherto 
been  ecclesiastical ;  the  Renaissance  is  a  secular,  and 


40        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

sometimes  even  pagan  revolt  against  this  sacerdotal 
monopoly.  The  Reformation  is  its  religious  counter- 
part, the  rebellion  of  the  middle-class  laity  against  the 
domination  by  the  Church  over  the  relations  between 
God  and  man.  Socially,  we  see  rich  burghers  com- 
peting with  feudal  lords  for  rank  and  title.  Michael 
de  la  Pole,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  in  Richard  ll.'s  reign,  is  the 
first  Englishman  who  owed  his  peerage  to  wealth 
derived  from  trade ;  knighthoods  are  won  in  the 
counting-house  as  well  as  on  the  field  of  battle ;  the 
feudal  bars  of  iron  are  broken  down,  and  golden  keys 
begin  to  unlock  the  doors  of  office  and  influence.  The 
great  ministers  of  Tudor  times,  the  Cromwells,  the 
Cecils,  the  Walsinghams,  all  spring  from  the  new 
middle,  and  not  the  old  feudal,  classes ;  and  Queen 
Elizabeth  herself  was  great-grand-daughter  of  a 
London  merchant.  Politically,  this  expansion  shows 
itself  in  the  development  of  the  House  of  Commons 
at  the  expense  of  the  House  of  Lords  and  of  the 
monarchy ;  and,  but  for  this  middle-class  aggression, 
Charles  I.  would  never  have  laid  his  head  on  the  block, 
nor  James  II.  have  fled  beyond  the  sea.  Economically, 
the  whole  geographical  movement,  the  search  for  new 
trade  routes,  the  foundation  of  great  companies,  the 
Merchant  Adventurers,  the  East  India  Company,  the 
Levant  Company  are  all  expressions  of  the  growth  of 
a  commercial  middle  class. 

This  in  itself  meant  a  revolution  destructive  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  We  sometimes  call  those  the  feudal 
ages,  without  perhaps  any  very  definite  idea  of  what 
feudalism  was.     But  two  things  are  clear  enough  about 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    41 

feudalism.  Firstly,  it  was  a  rural  organisation,  a 
system — if  anything  so  vague  can  be  called  a  system 
— based  upon  man's  relation  to  the  land,  and  regulated 
by  the  conditions  of  agricultural  life.  There  were  of 
course  towns  and  cities  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  they 
were  always  exceptions  to  the  feudal  system.  The 
mass  of  the  population  lived  in  the  country,  not  in  the 
towns.  Secondly,  feudalism  contemplated,  roughly, 
only  two  classes,  the  lords  and  their  villeins.  Now,  the 
industrial  and  commercial  system  of  modern  history 
requires  two  factors  which  feudalism  did  not  provide ; 
it  requires  a  middle  class  and  it  requires  an  urban 
population.  Without  these  two  there  would  have 
been  little  to  distinguish  modern  from  medieval 
history.  Without  commerce  and  industry  there  can 
be  no  middle  class ;  where  you  had  no  middle  class, 
you  had  no  Renaissance  and  no  Reformation.  We 
find  two  examples  in  Poland  and  Spain.  Poland  was 
a  country  whose  feudal  existence  was,  unfortunately 
for  it,  prolonged  into  modern  history.  There  were 
only  two  classes,  the  peasants  and  the  nobles;  such 
commerce  as  there  was,  was  carried  on  by  aliens, 
Germans  and  Jews ;  they  inhabited  the  cities  which 
were  never  worked  into  the  Polish  national  system. 
Hence  it  was  only  in  the  cities  that  the  Reformation 
made  itself  felt ;  there  was  no  Renaissance,  and  Poland 
remained  the  most  Catholic  country  in  Europe  with 
the  possible  exception  of  Spain.  And  in  Spain  the 
explanation  is  much  the  same ;  fortune  had  done  much 
for  Spain,  and  its  acquisition  of  the  New  World  might 
have    made    it   the    greatest    commercial    nation    in 


42        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

history.  But  its  long  warfare  with  the  Moors  had 
stereotyped  the  military,  crusading,  and  exclusive 
character  of  its  feudal  class ;  the  nobles  declined  to 
adapt  themselves  to  the  commercial  conditions  of  the 
age  ;  Spanish  industry  and  commerce  were  discouraged 
by  foolish  pride  and  crushed  by  insane  taxation.  The 
middle  classes  were  denied  their  proper  outlets  for 
political,  social,  and  economic  expansion  ;  Spain  was 
pauperised  rather  than  enriched  by  the  wealth  of  the 
Indies;  Renaissance  and  Reformation  found  no  soil 
in  which  to  take  permanent  root,  and  Spain  in  the 
sixteenth  century  plunged  back  into  the  theology  of 
the  Middle  Ages. 

England,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  for  centuries 
peculiarly  the  land  of  the  middle  classes ;  they  give 
the  tone  to  everything  English,  good  or  bad,  and 
English  history  has  been  made  by  its  middle  class  to  a 
greater  extent  than  the  history  of  any  other  European 
country.  This  peculiar  strength  of  the  English  middle 
class  is  a  complex  factor  in  our  history,  nor  can  it 
readily  be  explained.  We  can  perceive  conditions 
even  in  the  Middle  Ages  tending  to  foster  a  strong 
middle  class  ;  but  one  always  has  the  uncomfortable 
suspicion  that  these  conditions  are  as  much  the  effect, 
as  the  cause,  of  the  strength  of  the  middle  class.  One 
of  these  circumstances  is  the  absence  of  impassable 
barriers  between  class  and  class  in  England.  Here 
there  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  nobility  of  blood, 
whatever  that  particularly  idiotic  phrase  may  mean. 
The  younger  son  of  a  peer  is  a  commoner,  though  his 
blood  is  just  as  noble  as  that  of  his  noble  brother  ;  the 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    43 

grandsons  of  peers  often  take  their  place  in  the  upper 
middle  classes ;  and  thousands  of  members  of  the 
middle  class  in  England  number  peers  among  their 
ancestors.  The  middle  class  is  always  being  recruited 
from  the  nobility,  just  as  the  nobility  is  always  being 
recruited  from  the  middle  class.  But  in  Germany,  for 
instance,  there  was  a  great  gulf  fixed  between  the  two ; 
all  the  sons  of  a  prince  were  princes,  all  the  sons  of  a 
knight  were  knights,  and  so  on  through  all  the  aristo- 
cratic ranks.  Younger  sons  of  nobles  never  took  to 
trade ;  that  would  be  dishonourable,  and  they  took  to 
robbery  instead ;  for  there  was  no  disgrace  in  plundering 
traders  and  seizing  by  force  wealth,  which  it  was  dis- 
honourable to  acquire  by  legitimate  methods.  Hence, 
while  in  England  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  the  nobles  were  adapting  themselves  to 
commercial  and  maritime  enterprise,  in  Germany  they 
wrapt  themselves  up  in  their  noble  exclusiveness  and 
turbulence,  grew  prouder  and  poorer  than  ever,  and 
consoled  themselves  for  their  poverty  by  attaching  an 
inordinate  value  to  their  birth,  and  to  the  customs  of 
their  class.  Even  in  the  nineteenth  century  a  German 
minister  of  state  could  not  bring  his  wife  to  court, 
unless  she  were  of  noble  blood,  and  the  persistence  of 
duelling  is  simply  another  symptom  of  the  same  class- 
pride  and  prejudice.  I  took  up  a  novel  the  other  day 
by  a  well-known  writer  and  noticed  a  comparison 
between  the  English  and  German  attitude  towards 
duelling ;  these  things,  it  was  remarked,  '  do  not 
depend  upon  civilisation,  since  modern  Germany  is 
probably  more  civilised  than  modern  England.     They 


44         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

depend  upon  national  character.'^  National  char- 
acter, we  know,  is  a  convenient  deus  ex  machina ;  but 
duelling  is  a  class,  and  not  a  national,  characteristic. 
Its  prevalence  in  Germany  is  due  partly  to  the  rigidity 
and  exclusiveness  of  the  aristocratic  sentiment  which 
has  not  been  pervaded  and  civilised  by  middle-class 
opinion,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  no  strong  central 
monarchy,  based  on  the  middle  class,  arose  in 
Germany  to  deal  with  feudal  turbulence,  for  duelling 
is  simply  the  last  surviving  form  of  the  private  warfare 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  middle  class  in  Germany 
received  no  reinforcements  from  the  upper  ;  the  landed 
gentry  remained  isolated  from  the  city  magnates,  and 
class  divisions  deferred  for  centuries  the  realisation  of 
German  unity,  and  its  start  in  the  national  race  for 
Empire. 

This  absence  of  social  castes  likewise  fostered  the 
growth  of  self-government  in  England.  The  strength 
of  the  English  House  of  Commons  and  the  weakness 
of  the  third  estate  in  the  medieval  constitutions  of 
Europe  both  arise  from  a  similar  contrast.  The 
strength  of  the  House  of  Commons  depended  on  the 
union  in  it  of  the  landed  gentry,  the  knights  of  the 
shires,  and  the  borough  and  city  members.  Now,  the 
knights  of  the  shires  were  the  barones  minoreSy  the 
lesser  tenants-in-chief;  there  was  no  distinction  in 
class  or  kind  between  them  and  the  barones  majores, 
who  formed  the  House  of  Lords  ;  and  on  the  continent 
the  barones  minores  clung  to  their  class  and  formed  the 
noble  estate.      In   England   they  threw   in    their   lot 

*  F.  Marion  Crawford,  Greiffenstein. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    45 

with  the  burghers  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the 
middle  class  was  reinforced  by  the  landed  gentry.  To 
this  combination  is  due  the  predominance  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  the  victory  of  Parliament 
over  the  Crown.  Everywhere  else  the  monarchy 
played  upon  the  jealousy  between  the  three  estates, 
and  made  itself  absolute  through  their  divisions.  The 
depth  of  those  divisions,  and  the  inability  of  one  class 
in  France  to  co-operate  with  another,  made  the 
Bourbon  despotism  possible  and  excusable,  though 
its  failure  to  remove  them  involved  it  ultimately  in 
fearful  destruction.  In  England  alone  the  middle 
classes  were  not  hemmed  in  by  impassable  barriers ; 
in  England  alone  was  their  development  a  peaceful 
transformation,  and  the  comparative  facility  with 
which  these  transformations  are  made  has  been  the 
making  of  England.  Her  constitution  is  organic, 
not  cut  and  dried  ;  it  grew  and  was  not  manufactured  ; 
it  is  not  tied  up  by  knots  and  definitions ;  it  is  not 
obliged  to  burst  because  it  wants  to  expand.  Of 
course  it  is  illogical,  vague,  flexible ;  but  that  very 
adaptability,  which  has  enabled  despotism  and  demo- 
cracy to  employ  the  same  constitutional  forms,  has 
rendered  violent  revolutions  as  a  rule  unnecessary. 
And,  if  England  is  destined  to  turn  into  a  social 
democracy,  the  transformation  will  be  accomplished 
by  the  same  gradual,  legitimate,  and  peaceful  methods 
as  those  by  which  feudal  England  was  converted  into 
a  commercial,  middle-class  community. 

The  flexibility  of  English  social  and  constitutional 
arrangements  was,  then,  the  great  condition  facilitating 


46         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

the  growth  of  the  middle  classes ;  but  it  did  not  cause 
that  growth.  Its  origin  was  in  the  revival  of  trade 
which  followed  upon  the  settling  down  of  Europe  after 
the  barbarian  migrations.  Old  trade  routes  were 
restored,  new  ones  discovered,  and  along  them  grew 
up  great  cities  like  those  along  the  Rhine.  Com- 
mercial development  was  followed  by  constitutional 
growth;  these  urban  communities  demanded  a  voice 
in  their  own  affairs ;  and  then,  in  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries,  you  have  the  movement  for  the 
establishment  of  communes,  in  which  the  management 
of  municipal  affairs  prepared  the  middle  classes  for 
participation  in  the  wider  business  of  the  nation. 
England  lay  on  the  outskirts  of  this  development, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century 
that  the  citizens  of  London  purchased  from  Richard  I. 
a  municipal  constitution  closely  allied  to  that  of 
Rouen ;  and  other  English  cities  were  fifty  years 
behind  the  capital.  The  basis  of  English  commercial 
prosperity  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  wool,  grown 
largely  by  the  Cistercians  and  other  monastic  orders, 
but  handled  by  lay  merchants.  At  first  these  mer- 
chants were  largely  foreigners  ;  but  with  the  nationalist 
movement  of  the  thirteenth  century  English  merchants 
began  to  oust  the  alien,  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews 
by  Edward  I.  threw  financial  business  into  English 
hands.  Then  trade  was  developed  by  Edward  lll.'s 
conquests  abroad ;  naval  victories  secured  English 
shipping  ;  and  the  wine  trade  with  Bordeaux  became, 
next  to  wool,  the  most  flourishing  branch  of  English 
commerce. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    47 

This  expansion  helped  to  break  up  the  rigid 
manorial  system,  which  was  already  decaying  through 
other  causes.  Money  payments  were  substituted  for 
personal  services,  and  the  villeins  slowly  won  emanci- 
pation. Labour  became  mobile ;  instead  of  being 
fixed  to  the  soil,  it  sought  markets  wherever  they 
could  be  found,  and  provided  employers  with  the  hands 
without  which  the  great  development  of  capitalism 
in  the  fifteenth  century  could  never  have  taken  place. 
Financial  speculation  came  into  vogue  ;  as  early  as 
Edward  lll.'s  reign  we  read  of  a  dealer  who  spread  a 
false  rumour  of  war  in  order  to  send  down  the  price  of 
wool.^  He  was  banished  ;  but  the  trick  soon  became 
too  familiar  to  involve  such  drastic  treatment.  We 
hear  ceaseless  complaints  of  forestalling,  regrating, 
engrossing ;  our  respectable  grocers,  by  the  by,  are 
descended  from  the  *  engrossers,'  against  whom  Parlia- 
ment from  the  fourteenth  to  the  sixteenth  century  was 
never  tired  of  fulminating.  Men  began  to  speculate  in 
land  and  houses,  to  buy  up  whole  streets  and  lease  out 
the  houses  on  profitable  terms,  to  accumulate  farms 
and  to  substitute  cultivation  on  a  large  scale  for  the 
piecemeal  agriculture  prevalent  before ;  and  all  these 
processes  were  illustrations  of  the  application  of  com- 
mercial methods  to  the  stagnant  economics  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Manufactures,  too,  grew  up ;  cloth 
factories,  tanneries,  breweries,  iron  mills,  and  a  host  of 
others.  In  Elizabeth's  reign,  for  instance,  we  come 
across  the  very  modern  lament  that  England  supplied 
the  whole  world  with  ordnance,  and  would  smart  for  it 

^  'D^'Ewts,  Journals,  p.  i66. 


48         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

when  this  ordnance  was  turned  against  herself;  just  as 
to-day  some  would  prohibit  us  from  building  ships  for 
foreign  navies.  So,  in  one  way  or  another,  before  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century  a  new  middle  class,  a  new 
social  force,  had  been  created,  and  this  force  is  one  of 
the  greatest  factors  in  the  making  of  modern  history. 

Now  commerce  and  industry  quicken  the  intellect 
more  than  agriculture  ;  purely  agricultural  counties  are 
to-day  proverbially  sleepy,  and  a  little  intellect  went  a 
long  way  in  the  rural  England  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Nobles  themselves  could  seldom  read  or  write,  and 
even  a  king  was  called  '  Beauclerk '  because  he  pos- 
sessed these  two  accomplishments.  The  man  who 
could  write  was  a  clerk,  a  cleric,  that  is  to  say  an 
ecclesiastic.  The  Church  monopolised  all  culture,  and 
hence  all  art  and  science  were  ecclesiastical.  But  the 
new  middle-class  laity,  with  their  sharpened  wits,  felt  a 
sort  of  intellectual  hunger,  and  this  hunger  produced 
the  Renaissance.  The  Renaissance,  has  of  course,  like 
every  other  phenomenon,  been  attributed  to  one 
sudden  dramatic  event,  the  capture  of  Constantinople 
by  the  Turks ;  and  equally,  of  course,  this  attribution 
is  grossly  misleading  and  incorrect.  The  revival  of 
letters  was  in  full  swing  before  1453 ;  one  of  the 
greatest  triumphs  of  pure  scholarship,  the  exposure  of 
the  forged  Donation  of  Constantine,  had  been  achieved 
by  Lorenzo  Valla  in  1440 ;  Greek  was  being  taught  at 
Florence  as  early  as  1397.  In  art  the  revival  had 
begun  even  earlier ;  Brunelleschi's  Duomo  at  Florence 
dates  from  141  o,  and  the  great  school  of  Flemish 
painters,  headed  by  the  Van  Eycks,  flourished  in  the 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    49 

fourteenth  century.  Nearly  a  dozen  universities  were 
founded  in  Europe  between  the  middle  of  the  four- 
teenth and  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  centuries ;  and 
numbers  of  schools  sprang  up  during  the  same  period. 
In  our  own  land,  Eton  was  founded  in  1440  and 
Winchester  College  some  fifty  years  earlier.  Scholars 
no  doubt  fled  from  Constantinople,  and  perhaps 
brought  precious  manuscripts  with  them ;  but  they 
bulk  too  large  in  our  text-books :  at  the  most  they 
only  gave  impetus  to  a  movement  which  had  begun 
before  their  flight  from  the  Turk.  That  is  one  of  the 
important  facts  to  remember  about  the  Renaissance ; 
another  is  that  it  represented  a  lay  and  a  middle-class 
demand  for  culture,  and  not  a  revival  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical spirit. 

The  same  two  statements  are  likewise  true  of  the 
Reformation  itself.  We  date  it  from  the  publication 
of  Luther's  Ninety-five  Theses  in  15 17.  But  eras  can- 
not be  dated  by  years  with  any  real  accuracy  ;  and  to 
say  that  the  Reformation  began  in  15 17  is  as  mislead- 
ing as  to  say  that  the  Renaissance  began  in  1453.  No 
one  can  tell  exactly  when  either  began  ;  but  we  can 
say  that  the  beginnings  of  both  were  long  before  the 
dramatic  events  by  which  we  date  them.  '  With 
Boniface  VIII.,'  says  Bishop  Creighton,  'there  fell  the 
Mediaeval  Papacy.'  Now  Boniface  vill.  died  in  1304, 
and  in  1311  the  Council  of  Vienne  put  forward  the 
first  demand  for  a  general  reformation  of  the  Medieval 
Church.  For  a  century  and  a  half  men  were  making 
that  demand,  and  expecting  it  to  be  satisfied  by  the 
convocation  of  an  ecumenical  council.     The  conciliar 

D 


50         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

movement,  as  it  is  called,  came  to  a  head  in  the 
councils  of  Constance  and  Basle  ;  but  it  failed  because 
Europe  had  become  nationalised ;  the  ecumenical 
machinery  of  the  world  had  grown  rusty,  national 
machinery  was  taking  its  place :  and  time  was  to  prove 
that  only  the  nations  could  really  reform  the  Church. 
Unscrupulous  Popes  profited  by  national  divisions  to 
balk  these  ecumenical  councils,  and  every  appeal  from 
the  Pope  to  a  Council  was  prohibited.  The  Pope 
thought  to  make  legal  reform  impossible,  just  as 
James  II.  did,  when  he  threw  the  Great  Seal  into  the 
Thames ;  and  the  only  result  was  to  make  revolution 
inevitable. 

That  is  only  one  factor  in  the  genesis  of  the  Refor- 
mation, which  was  more  than  a  change  in  church 
government.  It  was  the  revolt  of  a  laity,  growing  in 
intelligence  against  ecclesiastical  tutelage — a  tutelage 
only  tolerable,  then  and  now,  when  the  clergy  are 
superior  in  intellect  and  knowledge  and  in  character  to 
those  over  whom  they  claim  to  exercise  sway.  These 
things  were  no  longer  an  ecclesiastical  monopoly ;  and 
conscience  and  wealth,  intellect  and  pride  combined  in 
a  strange  jumble  of  motives  to  repudiate  a  control, 
which  had  become  galling  because  its  raison  (Titre  had 
ceased  to  exist.  The  symbolism  which  had  satisfied 
rustic  minds,  because  rustic  minds  can  only  grasp  a 
symbol,  failed  to  satisfy  the  keener  quest  for  truth 
behind  the  ritual.  Men  sought  out  original  sources 
in  religion  as  well  as  in  scholarship,  and  grew  impatient 
of  medieval  glosses.  Scholastic  theology  was  attacked 
by  pioneers  of  reform  a  century  before  Luther's  day. 


i 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  CLASS    51 

*  If  I  had  read  his  books  before/  wrote  Luther  of  one 
of  them,  *  my  enemies  might  have  thought  that  I  had 
borrowed  everything  from  him,  so  great  is  the  agree- 
ment between  our  spirits.'  Popular  preachers  de- 
nounced the  vices  of  the  age  ;  numerous  translations  of 
the  Scriptures  into  vernacular  tongues  were  made,  in 
spite  of  the  official  disapprobation  of  the  Church ;  and 
there  was  a  remarkable  development  of  family  worship. 
The  revival  of  religion  was  non-ecclesiastical ;  and  it 
was  one  of  the  causes,  and  not  one  of  the  results,  of  the 
Reformation. 

And  so,  whatever  factor  we  take  in  the  making  of 
that  change  from  medieval  to  modern  history,  whether 
the  growth  of  a  middle  class,  geographical  exploration, 
economic  development,  the  revival  of  letters,  or  of 
religion,  we  find  that  the  same  thing  is  true  about  all. 
They  have  their  roots  stretching  far  back  into  the  past, 
and  buried  far  out  of  sight.  The  growth  and  decay 
are  silent,  gradual,  almost  imperceptible.  The  dramatic 
events  which  catch  the  eye  and  the  ear,  and  by  which 
we  date  the  progress  or  backsliding  of  mankind,  are, 
like  the  catastrophes  which  convulse  the  sphere  of 
nature,  but  the  outward  and  visible  manifestations  of 
causes,  working  without  rest,  without  haste,  without 
conscious  human  direction  in  the  making  of  the  history 
of  the  world. 


52        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


III 

THE  NEW  MONARCHY 

In  my  first  lecture  I  drew  your  attention  to  the  fact 
that,  whereas  ancient  history  deals  mainly  with  the 
City-state  and  medieval  history  with  the  World-state, 
modern  history  is  concerned  principally  with  the 
national  State ;  and  to-day  my  object  is  to  illustrate 
the  development  of  the  national  State,  particularly  as 
represented  by  what  we  call  the  New  Monarchy.  For 
that  is  one  of  the  prime  factors  in  the  history  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  abstract  idea  of  the  State  has 
been  expressed  in  various  forms ;  it  has  been  cast  in 
one  mould  after  another,  and  so  far  it  has  found 
its  most  complete  and  effective  expression  in  the 
national  State.  The  feeling,  which  bound  the  Athenian 
to  the  City  of  the  Violet  Crown  and  the  Roman  to  the 
City  of  the  Seven  Hills,  now  links  men  to  their  country, 
the  national  State ;  and  patriotism  has  expanded  from 
a  municipal  into  a  national  force.  How  far  that 
patriotism  is  capable  of  further  expansion  into  an 
imperial  sentiment,  and  how  far  that  sentiment  is 
capable  of  crystallisation  in  an  imperial  state  is  a 
problem  of  which  none  of  us  will  see  the  final  solution. 
But,  into  whatever  form  the  idea  has  been  born  anew, 
it  has  had  to  develop  over  again  from  the  beginning, 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  53 

and  we  must  glance  for  a  few  minutes  at  the  growth 
of  the  national  state  until  it  reaches  its  adult  stage  in 
the  sixteenth  century. 

For  the  state  in  its  infancy  may  be  likened  unto  a 
little  child.  It  has  no  ideas  of  its  own  and  its  earliest 
utterances  are  merely  the  repetition  of  what  it  has 
heard.  Its  voice  is  expressed  in  legislation,  and 
some  of  you  may  have  studied  these  early  expressions 
in  a  book  called  Stubbs's  Select  Chatters.  That  volume 
has  a  reputation  for  dullness,  obscurity,  and  general 
incomprehensibility;  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  not  be 
believed  when  I  say  that,  properly  treated,  it  may  be 
made  intelligible,  interesting,  and  even  at  times 
amusing.  Well,  in  those  pages  you  will  find  the  first 
attempts  of  the  national  state  to  express  its  ideas  in 
writing  ;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  construction 
is  somewhat  crude,  the  language  bald,  and  the  grammar 
occasionally  at  fault — as  you  would  expect  from  a 
child.  The  ideas,  too,  are  not  new ;  the  laws  are  not 
legislation  in  our  sense  of  the  word ;  they  simply 
repeat  what  has  hitherto  been  the  custom  ;  they  are 
the  committing  to  writing  of  those  things  which  men 
had  practised  as  a  matter  of  unconscious  habit.  Now 
the  child  is  generally  given  a  governess ;  so  is  the 
State,  and  its  governess  is  the  Church.  And  the  first 
thing  the  governess  says  is  '  you  must  be  good.'  Those 
precise  words  do  not  occur  in  Stubbs's  Charters,  but 
the  meaning  is  conveyed  in  somewhat  more  formal 
terms  when  a  legatine  council  at  York  lays  it  down  ^ 

1  Rectitude  regis  noviter  ordinati  et  in  solium  sublimati  est  haec  tria 
praecepta  populo  Christiano  sibi  subdito  praecipere,  etc. — Stubbs's  Select 
Charters i  p.  62. 


54        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

that  the  right  and  proper  thing  for  a  newly  crowned 
and  consecrated  king  is  to  see  that  peace  is  kept  in 
Church  and  State,  to  prohibit  wrong  and  violence,  and 
to  ordain  justice  and  mercy  in  all  his  judgments.  This 
is  the  function  of  the  Church  in  the  Dark  and  Middle 
Ages,  to  educate  these  growing  states  in  the  proper 
notions  of  right  and  wrong,  to  uphold  a  standard  higher 
than  that  of  force  and  fraud,  and  to  set  the  moral 
above  and  before  the  material  order  of  things.  No 
higher  or  more  necessary  duty  has  been  fulfilled  by 
any  institution  ;  although  one  may  sometimes  think 
that  the  anathemas,  interdicts,  and  excommunications 
employed  by  the  Church  to  terrorise  medieval  sove- 
reigns were  somewhat  like  the  bogies  used  to  frighten 
little  children.  The  Church,  too,  taught  the  State  to 
write  ;  clerk  and  cleric  are  one  and  the  same  word  ; 
the  writer  was  a  churchman,  and  churchmen  did  all 
the  writing  in  the  early  Middle  Ages.  They  intro- 
duced written  laws  into  England  and  written  wills. 
They  wrote  all  the  history  in  those  times,  and  perhaps 
they  coloured  it  too.  And  they  derived  a  more  mate- 
rial advantage  from  the  writing  of  wills ;  for  it  com- 
monly happened  that  wills  written,  proved,  and 
administered  by  clerical  hands  contained  munificent 
bequests  to  ecclesiastical  foundations. 

As  time  went  on,  however,  the  State  began  to 
develop  ideas  of  its  own  ;  legislation  begins  to  be 
something  more  than  the  statement  of  ancient  custom. 
It  begins  to  enunciate  new  principles,  and  the  State  to 
enforce  them.  The  State  in  fact  has  developed  a  will 
of  its  own,  and  then  the  differences  with  the  governess 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  55 

begin.  The  first  real  act  of  legislation  dates  in 
England  from  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  and  so  does  the 
first  great  quarrel  with  the  Church  ;  you  find  one  in  the 
Assize,  and  the  other  in  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon. 
The  result  of  this  battle  royal  is  still  disputed:  whether 
the  victory  really  lay  with  the  State  or  the  Church,  the 
child  was  not  yet  old  enough  to  do  without  the  gover- 
ness ;  and  it  remained  in  somewhat  sulky  tutelage,  with 
occasional  rebellions,  until  the  sixteenth  century.  Its 
sovereignty  was  denied,  and  it  spent  its  time,  not  so 
much  in  governing,  as  in  struggling  for  existence. 
But  by  the  sixteenth  century  the  child  had  grown  to 
lusty  youth,  if  not  to  manhood.  The  governess  was 
dismissed  with  what  she  thought  a  very  inadequate 
pension  ;  and  we  hear  much  of  the  great  spoliation 
made  by  Henry  VIII.  The  State  now  boldly  claimed 
omnipotence ;  and  the  claim  is  most  forcibly  and 
logically  expressed  in  the  Leviathan  of  Thomas 
Hobbes — the  best  philosophical  comment  extant  on 
the  Tudor  system,  although  it  was  written  in  Stuart 
times.  Sovereignty,  he  explained,  must  be  absolute, 
though  the  sovereign  need  not  be  a  monarch  ;  it  may 
be  a  popular  assembly,  and  to-day  it  is  Parliament. 
It  does  not  merely  state  law  ;  it  does  not  merely  apply 
law ;  but  it  creates  law.  Instead  of  being  merely  a 
custom  or  a  revelation  of  God  or  of  nature,  law  has 
become  a  command  of  the  State.  Bentham  adopted 
this  view  when  he  spoke  about  the  '  omnicompetence ' 
of  the  State  ;  and  the  position  is  not  now  seriously  chal- 
lenged. It  may  be  unwise  or  unjust  for  the  State  to 
do  various  things  ;  but  if  it  does  those  things  by  proper 


56        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

constitutional  methods,  their  legal  authority  cannot 
be  denied,  though  their  moral  validity  may  be  im- 
pugned. Within  the  limits  of  human  possibility,  the 
State  has  become  omnipotent ;  its  growth  is  complete  ; 
from  a  creation  it  has  become  a  creator. 

This  complex  and  abstract  conception  of  the  State 
has  only  been  evolved  by  a  slow  and  painful  process. 
The  Teutonic  invaders  of  Great  Britain  had  scarcely 
any  notion  of  the  State ;  their  state  was  simply  their 
kindred,  their  blood  relations.  They  knew  of  no  such 
thing  as  treason ;  all  crimes  were  merely  offences 
against  the  kindred,  and  might  be  redeemed  by  money 
payments  to  the  family.  This  family  system  broke 
down  under  the  stress  of  war  and  migration,  which 
produced  a  specialised  military  class ;  and  the  chief 
of  this  class  became  the  king.  The  Church  baptized 
what  war  had  begotten  ;  and  the  king  became  gradu- 
ally the  anointed  of  God,  the  fountain  of  honour  and 
justice,  and  lord  first  of  the  people  and  then  of  their 
land.  He  symbolised  the  unity  of  his  people,  and  his 
authority  grew  in  degree  as  it  expanded  in  area.  At 
first  he  is  merely  a  tribal  chieftain  ;  next  he  is  King  of 
the  Mercians,  the  Northumbrians,  or  the  West  Saxons ; 
and  finally  King  of  the  English.  But  the  English  are 
still  divided  ;  there  are  many  dialects,  myriad  local 
customs,  and  diverse  methods  of  thought.  The  Saxon  is 
not  as  the  Northumbrian  ;  and  the  antagonism  between 
North  and  South,  which  gave  William  the  conquest  of 
England,  is  hardly  extinct  until  the  sixteenth  century  ; 
the  last  forcible  expression  of  it  is  the  rebellion  of  the 
Earls  in  1569,  which  is  as   much  the  last  kick  of  an 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  57 

expiring  feudalism  as  it  is  a  protest  against  Protestan- 
tism. The  king  is  for  long  the  only  national  represen- 
tative, and  round  him  centre  such  national  aspirations 
as  emerge  from  the  conflict  of  local  passions.  National 
unity  is  only  personal ;  the  king  is  the  State ;  treason 
is  an  offence  against  him ;  and  it  required  a  very 
arbitrary  straining  of  the  law  to  bring  it  to  bear  against 
Strafford  with  the  idea  that  treason  was  really  an 
offence  against  the  State,  of  which  the  king  was  only 
an  ornamental  expression. 

Feudalism,  however,  was  an  uncongenial  soil  for 
absolute  monarchy.  The  king  was  the  theoretical 
apex  of  civilisation,  the  head  of  everything ;  but 
practice  robbed  him  of  most  of  his  powers,  and  divided 
them  among  his  barons.  The  king  was  primus  inter 
paresy  little  more ;  and  all  the  talk  about  divine 
right,  absolute  power,  and  passive  obedience  is  modern 
and  not  medieval.  Indeed  the  growth  of  these 
things  is  one  of  the  factors  of  modern  history,  and 
one  of  the  chief  features  of  the  age  with  which  we  are 
dealing.  As  is  always  the  case,  the  growth  is  one  of 
events  and  ideas  ;  it  is  both  material  and  moral,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  disentangle  the  action  and  reaction 
of  these  two  elements  upon  one  another.  One  school  of 
historians,  or  rather  philosophers,  fondly  imagines  that 
history  is  simply  the  working  out  of  ideas,  that  political 
philosophy  has  moulded  events,  that  force  has  never 
conquered  truth,  that  right  is  might.  According  to 
this  school  the  New  Monarchy  is  the  material  result 
of  the  new  ideas  about  kingship  which  spread  in  the 
fifteenth   and    sixteenth    centuries.      Another  school 


58        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

holds  that  political  philosophy  is  simply  a  series  of 
deductions  from  past  experience,  of  comments  on 
facts  already  decided,  that  events  have  moulded  ideas 
more  than  ideas  have  moulded  events,  that  force  is 
the  ultimate  sanction,  that  persecution  has  succeeded 
whenever  it  has  been  steadily  and  skilfully  applied, 
that  might  is  right.  According  to  this  school,  the 
new  ideas  about  kingship  were  simply  the  reflexion 
in  men's  minds  of  the  material  achievements  of  the 
New  Monarchy.  Amid  the  conflict  of  these  two 
schools  one  thing  is  clear,  and  that  is  that  generalisa- 
tions are  always  to  some  extent  untrue.  No  one 
really  acquainted  with  history  can  maintain  that 
persecution  has  never  succeeded  ;  logically,  too,  it  is 
obvious  that  if  right  is  always  might,  then  might  is 
always  right.  If  truth  has  always  prevailed,  then 
whatever  has  prevailed  is  truth  ;  and  we  set  the  fatuous 
generalisation  '  whatever  is,  is  true '  beside  Alexander 
Pope's  still  more  childish  assertion  that  *  whatever  is, 
is  right' 

The  correct  sequence  seems  to  be  that  material 
necessities  predisposed  men's  minds  towards  a  modi- 
fication of  the  existing  system  ;  this  was  perceived  by 
the  rulers  and  statesmen  of  that  time,  who  applied  the 
practical  remedy;  and  then  followed  the  theoretical 
justification  of  the  accomplished  fact.  Machiavelli 
did  not  invent  his  Prince,  he  merely  painted  him  from 
life.  Hobbes  did  not  imagine  the  Leviathan ;  he 
merely  reduced  to  a  dogma  the  practice  of  Tudor 
sovereigns ;  and,  as  so  often  happens,  the  conditions, 
which  had  produced  and  justified    that  practice,  had 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  59 

already  passed  away  before  the  philosopher  evolved 
out  of  it  an  abstract  theoretical  system  for  universal 
and  permanent  application.  However  that  may  be, 
the  old  order  in  the  fifteenth  century  was  in  a  state 
of  liquidation,  and  the  problem  was  how  to  keep 
society  afloat.  Every  great  medieval  institution  had 
gone  or  was  going  under.  The  empire  had  dissolved 
into  nations,  the  prestige  of  the  Papacy  had  been 
dimmed  by  its  Babylonish  captivity  at  Avignon  and 
then  by  the  great  schism.  Unity  gave  way  to  diver- 
sity of  tongues,  of  churches,  and  of  states ;  and  the 
medieval  cosmopolitan  became  the  modern  nation- 
alist, patriot,  separatist.  Feudal  chivalry  and  feudal 
castles  had  fallen  before  gunpowder  and  artillery; 
the  growth  of  industry  and  commerce  had  under- 
mined a  social  system  based  on  the  tenure  of  land  ; 
and  the  middle  classes  had  sapped  the  power  of  the 
barons.  The  manorial  system  had  broken  down 
through  the  substitution  of  rent  for  services  and  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs.  The  revival  of  learning, 
the  invention  of  the  printing  press,  the  expansion 
of  the  world  by  geographical  discovery  had  removed 
the  ancient  landmarks  and  delivered  the  minds  of 
men.  There  was  a  universal  welter,  a  menace  of 
general  anarchy.  In  France  the  strife  of  Burgundian 
and  Armagnac  threatened  political  disintegration  and 
the  destruction  of  social  order.  The  Wars  of  the 
Roses  brought  upon  England  a  similar  tale  of 
disasters.  Everywhere  there  was  need  of  a  saviour  of 
society ;  everywhere  this  saviour  was  found  in  the 
king.     '  Le  nouveau  Messiel  says  Michelet, '  est  le  roi! 


6o        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

National  monarchy  alone  seemed  to  profit  by  the 
decay  of  other  established  institutions ;  it  survived 
the  Middle  Ages  and  gained  by  their  disappearance, 
because  it  was  the  embodiment  of  the  coming  force 
of  nationality.  Kings  had  already  reduced  the 
emperor,  their  nominal  lord,  to  a  shadow  ;  they  now 
made  havoc  with  the  power  of  their  nominal  sub- 
ordinates, the  feudal  magnates ;  and  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  disruptive  forces  of  feudalism  and  the 
central  authority  ended  at  last  in  monarchical  triumph. 
Internal  unity  prepared  the  way  for  external  ex- 
pansion. France  was  first  in  the  field.  The  misery 
and  humiliation  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War  produced 
a  nationalist  reaction,  an  outburst  of  a  new  French 
patriotism  of  which  Jeanne  D'Arc  is  the  inspirer  and 
patron  saint.  The  feud  between  Burgundian  and 
Armagnac  was  healed  ;  by  the  ordinances  of  Orleans 
(1439)  the  foundations  were  laid  of  a  national  army 
and  a  national  system  of  finance.  The  cunning  of 
Louis  XI.  consolidated  the  work  of  Jeanne  D'Arc.  The 
remnants  of  feudal  independence  were  crushed,  and 
France  began  to  expand  at  the  cost  of  weaker  states. 
Parts  of  Burgundy,  Provence,  Anjou,  and  Brittany  were 
incorporated  in  the  P'rench  monarchy ;  and  the  exu- 
berant strength  of  the  new-formed  nation  burst  the 
barriers  of  the  Alps,  and  overflowed  into  the  plains  of 
Italy.  Other  States  followed  the  example  of  France  ; 
Ferdinand  of  Aragon  married  Isabella  of  Castile, 
drove  out  the  Moors  from  Andalusia,  and  founded  the 
modern  kingdom  of  Spain.  Marriage  had  been  his 
method  ;  but  in  the  arts  of  successful  matrimony  none 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  6i 

could  compete  with  the  Hapsburgs.  Bella  get  ant  alii ; 
tu^felix  Austria,  nub e.  Maximilian  married  the  heiress 
of  Charles  the  Bold,  and  united  the  Netherlands  with 
Austria ;  his  son,  the  Archduke  Philip,  married  the 
heiress  of  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  and  of  Isabella  of 
Castile ;  and  their  two  sons  were  the  Emperors 
Charles  v.  and  Ferdinand  I.  The  former  made  the 
Spanish  Empire ;  the  latter  founded  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  monarchy  by  wedding  the  daughter  of  the 
King  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia.  This  union,  however, 
was  purely  dynastic,  not  national ;  and  it  was  the  doom 
of  Austria  to  be  made  by  the  marriage  of  princes  and 
marred  by  the  discord  of  peoples. 

The  political  system  of  Europe  was  thus  roughly 
sketched  out,  though  the  boundaries  of  the  rival  king- 
doms were  still  undetermined,  and  there  remained 
minor  principalities  and  powers,  chiefly  in  Italy  and 
Germany,  which  offered  an  easy  prey  to  their  ambitious 
neighbours.  For  both  Germany  and  Italy  had  sacri- 
ficed national  unity  to  the  shadow  of  universal  sov- 
ereignty, Germany  in  the  temporal  and  Italy  in  the 
spiritual  sphere.  The  German  king  was  also  Holy 
Roman  Emperor,  bound  by  his  office  to  the  hopeless 
task  of  enforcing  his  authority  in  Italy,  and  Italy  was 
the  tomb  of  German  national  unity.  Its  own  unity 
was  prohibited  by  Papal  ambition,  for  the  Pope  could 
not  tolerate  a  secular  rival  in  the  Italian  Peninsula ; 
and,  from  the  days  of  the  Goth  and  the  Lombard  in 
the  sixth  and  eighth  centuries  to  those  of  Victor 
Emmanuel  in  the  nineteenth,  every  aspirant  for  the 
national  sovereignty  of  Italy  has  had  to  meet  the  bitter 


62        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

enmity  of  the  Papacy.  And  so  both  Italy  and  Germany 
were  ruled  out  of  the  national  race,  and  had  to  wait 
three  hundred  years  for  that  national  consolidation 
which  their  rivals  achieved  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

This  process  of  unification  was  not  merely  material 
and  geographical.  When  one  country  is  united  with 
another  it  means  not  only  a  union  of  territory  but  an 
attempted  harmony  of  different  aspirations,  interests, 
and  politics.  Look  at  the  map  of  Spain,  for  instance. 
'  The  geography  of  Spain,'  says  a  recent  writer  on 
ancient  history,^  '  has  always  been  the  key  to  the 
history  and  even  to  the  character  of  the  inhabitants. 
Its  peninsular  form,  and  its  singularly  definite  frontier 
on  the  one  side  on  which  it  is  not  surrounded  by 
the  sea,  give  the  country  a  superficial  appearance 
of  unity.  In  reality  it  is  broken  up  into  separate 
sections  by  a  succession  of  transverse  mountain  ranges 
which  are  cut  by  no  great  river  running  from  north  to 
south.  The  dip  of  the  country  is  from  east  to  west, 
and  accordingly  the  chief  rivers  rise  near  the  Medi- 
terranean and  flow  into  the  Atlantic.  "  Nature,"  it  has 
been  said  by  one  who  knew  Spain  well,  "by  thus 
dislocating  the  country,  seems  to  have  suggested 
localism  and  isolation  to  the  inhabitants,  who  each  in 
their  valleys  and  districts  are  walled  off  from  their 
neighbours."  So  is  explained  that  powerlessness  for 
combination  on  a  great  scale  which  Strabo  absurdly 
ascribes  to  the  moroseness  of  the  Iberians,  whereas 
that  distrustful  temper  was  itself  a  mere  result  of  the 
geographical   conditions.      "They   are   bold    in    little 

*  W.  T.  Arnold,  Studies  of  Roman  Imperialism^  1906. 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  63 

adventures,"  says  Strabo,  "  but  never  undertake  any- 
thing of  magnitude,  inasmuch  as  they  have  never 
formed  any  extended  power  or  confederacy.  On  this 
account  the  Romans,  having  carried  war  into  Iberia, 
lost  much  time  by  reason  of  the  number  of  different 
sovereignties,  having  to  conquer  first  one  then  another  ; 
in  fact  it  occupied  nearly  two  centuries  or  even 
longer  before  they  had  subdued  the  whole." '  So,  too, 
when  the  Saracens  conquered  Spain  they  soon  split  up 
into  half-a-dozen  little  Moslem  states,  and  it  took  the 
Spaniards  four  centuries  to  subdue  them,  the  Spaniards 
themselves  being  divided  up  into  nearly  half-a-dozen 
kingdoms.  Nor  has  this  separation  entirely  dis- 
appeared ;  Spaniards  fought  on  different  sides  in  the 
War  of  the  Spanish  Succession.  '  It  is  always 
dangerous,'  says  a  modern  description,^  '  to  enter  into 
conversation  with  a  stranger  in  Spain,  for  there  is 
practically  no  subject  upon  which  the  various  nation- 
alities are  unable  to  quarrel.  A  Frenchman  is  a 
Frenchman  all  the  world  over,  and  politics  may  be 
avoided  by  a  graceful  reference  to  the  Patrie  for  which 
Republican  and  Legitimist  are  alike  prepared  to  die. 
But  a  Spaniard  may  be  an  Aragonese  or  a  Valencian, 
an  Andalusian  or  a  Guipuzcoan,  and  patriotism  is  a 
flower  of  purely  local  growth  and  colour.' 

Each  of  the  kingdoms,  united  in  the  fifteenth 
century  to  form  Spain,  had  its  own  individual  aspira- 
tions suggested  by  its  peculiar  geographical  conditions. 
Aragon,  for  instance,  is  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  Spain 
by  a  series  of  mountain  systems,  and  mountains  are  a 

^  H.  Seton  Merriman,  The  Velvet  Glove. 


64    FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

greater  barrier  than  the  sea.  It  was  easier  to  create 
the  British  Empire  than  to  unite  Germany  with  Italy 
or  France  with  Spain.  Louis  xiv.  boasted  that  the 
Pyrenees  were  no  more,  when  he  placed  his  grandson 
on  the  Spanish  throne  ;  but  the  Pyrenees  exist,  and 
France  and  Spain  are  separate.  Now  Aragon  looks 
towards  the  sea,  the  Mediterranean ;  its  aspirations 
lie  in  that  direction  ;  and  its  Mediterranean  commerce 
made  its  maritime  province,  Catalonia,  the  most  pro- 
gressive and  the  most  prosperous  part  of  Spain.  There 
alone  did  a  middle  class  and  a  trading  population 
grow,  and  even  to-day  Barcelona  is  the  headquarters 
of  revolutionary  sentiment  in  Spain.  Instead  of  ex- 
panding across  the  mountains,  it  had  first  expanded 
across  the  sea,  and  had  successfully  laid  claim  to  Sicily 
and  Naples.  These  Mediterranean  claims  and  ambi- 
tions, involving  conflicts  with  France,  with  the  Turks, 
and  in  Italy,  were  the  contribution  of  Aragon  to  the 
future  projects  and  perplexities  of  Spain.  The  dower 
of  Castile  comprised  claims  on  Portugal  and  hopes  of 
Andalusia,  an  oceanic  sea-board  with  its  loop-holes  to 
the  New  World  in  Vigo,  La  Corufia  and  Ferrol,  and 
a  northern  outlook  through  Bilbao  and  Santander, 
whence  Spanish  trade  and  Spanish  ships  sailed  the 
Bay  of  Biscay  and  the  English  Channel.  Castile  con- 
tributed to  the  United  Kingdom  its  medieval  pride 
and  priesthood,  its  crusading  zeal  against  the  Moors 
and  Indians,  and  the  spoils  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  The 
acquisition  of  Andalusia  brought  into  the  joint-stock 
Cadiz  and  Gibraltar,  the  command  of  the  entrance  to 
the  Mediterranean,  and  African  ambitions  which  led 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  6$ 

Charles  v.  to  waste  his  strength  in  efforts  to  conquer 
Tunis  and  Algiers.  Union  was  not  altogether 
strength ;  for  with  strength  it  brought  distraction 
between  conflicting  ambitions  and  heterogeneous 
policies.  Spain  could  never  make  up  its  mind  on 
which  horse  to  place  its  money,  the  Mediterranean, 
Africa,  Europe,  or  the  New  World.  Charles  v.  rang 
the  changes  ;  now  here,  now  there,  hesitating  which 
enterprise  to  take  first,  he  could  never  completely 
succeed  because  he  could  never  entirely  concen- 
trate. 

France  was  more  successful  because  its  unity  was 
more  real.  Unity  in  fact  has  been  its  passion  under 
all  its  forms  of  government,  and  mountain  chains  have 
not  secluded  its  people  in  close  compartments.  But 
its  origin  was  as  composite  and  its  elements  as  varied 
as  those  of  Spain.  Aquitaine,  which  had  not  been 
peopled  by  the  Franks,  did  not  become  really  French 
until  the  seventeenth  century ;  and  the  root,  which 
Huguenotism  struck  in  it,  may  have  owed  some  of  its 
tenacity  to  racial  bias  and  the  traditions  of  provincial 
independence.  At  any  rate,  before  the  rise  of  Cal- 
vinism, the  south-west  of  Franl-e  was  resenting  the 
Gabelle  and  regretting  its  lost  connection  with  the 
English  Crown.  But  for  the  most  part  union  brought 
real  strength  to  France ;  and  the  conflict  between  the 
policies,  which  her  various  acquisitions  brought,  was 
not  really  ruinous  until  the  eighteenth  century,  when, 
during  the  Seven  Years'  War,  she  sacrificed  her 
colonial  future  in  pursuit  of  European  glory.  These 
colonial   prospects  were   the   fruit  of  her  union  with 

E 


66        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Normandy  and  Brittany  in  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
Normans,  wrote  an  English  ambassador  from  Paris  in 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  will  be  rovers  and  pirates  as 
long  as  they  live.  They  were  rovers  after  the  style  of 
Frobisher,  Hawkins,  and  Drake ;  and  they  brought 
back  to  France  her  dominion  in  Canada  and  the  West 
Indies.  The  Newfoundland  fisheries,  developed  by 
Norman  and  Breton  seamen,  were  the  nursery  of  the 
French  marine,  and  they  were  one  of  the  points  for 
which  Louis  XIV.  fought  hardest  in  the  negotiations 
for  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht.  The  acquisition  of  Nor- 
mandy, Brittany,  and  Aquitaine  gave  France  nearly 
the  whole  of  her  sea-board  on  the  Channel  and  the 
Atlantic,  and  made  her  the  naval  and  colonial  rival  of 
England.  But  for  these  unconscious  builders  of  em- 
pire in  the  fifteenth  century,  there  would  have  been 
no  French  in  Canada  or  in  India ;  and  the  history 
of  English  expansion  in  the  Eastern  and  Western 
hemispheres  would  have  been  widely  different. 

As  Normandy,  Brittany,  and  Aquitaine  gave 
France  her  Atlantic  position,  so  the  acquisition  of 
Provence  brought  her  into  the  Mediterranean.  But 
for  that  she  would  not  be  in  Corsica,  Algiers,  and 
Tunis  to-day  ;  there  would  have  been  no  battle  of  the 
Nile,  no  Crimean  War,  no  dual  control  in  Egypt,  no 
Fashoda  incident.  The  Corsican  ogre  would  not  have 
been  a  Frenchman,  and  no  one  can  fathom  the  differ- 
ence which  that  fact  alone  would  have  made  in  nine- 
teenth century  history.  The  partition  of  Burgundy  by 
Louis  XI.  was  also  a  seed-plot  of  future  strife  between 
Valois  and  Hapsburg,  though  all  the  defeats  of  Francis  I. 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  67 

did  not  compel  restitution.  Lastly,  it  was  the  union 
of  Anjou  and  Orleans  with  the  French  Crown  which 
occasioned  the  French  invasion  of  Italy,  and  perennial 
strife  therein  between  French,  Spaniards  and  Austrians. 
For,  just  as  Aragon  brought  to  the  Spanish  monarchy 
its  claims  on  Naples  and  Sicily,  so  Anjou  brought  the 
competing  Angevin  claims  to  France;  and  the  medieval 
rivalry  between  the  houses  of  Anjou  and  Aragon  was 
merged  in  a  more  comprehensive  rivalry  between 
France  and  Spain.  So,  too,  when  Louis  of  Orleans 
became  Louis  Xll.  of  France,  he  endowed  the  French 
Crown  with  the  Visconti  claim  to  Milan,  and  no  apple 
of  discord  produced  more  strife  than  that  fertile  but 
ill-fated  duchy. 

All  this  expansion  pointed  to  closer  contact,  friendly 
or  hostile ;  isolated  squatters  on  a  limitless  plain  or 
veldt  have  little  communication ;  but,  as  soon  as  they 
have  pegged  out  claims  right  up  to  their  neighbours', 
they  see  one  another  more  often  and  watch  one  another 
more  closely.  It  was  so  with  these  national  States. 
Hitherto  diplomatic  relations  had  been  rare  and  spas- 
modic ;  ambassadors  were  only  despatched  on  special 
occasions ;  now  they  became  regular  and  resident. 
The  necessity  of  watching  one  another's  designs  begat 
the  modern  diplomatic  system  ;  mutual  adjustment  of 
each  other's  disputes  produced  international  law — an 
incomprehensible  idea  when  all  States  were  theoreti- 
cally subject  to  one   imperial  suzerain  ;  ^   and  mutual 

^  e.g.  In  1899  Great  Britain  declined  arbitration  with  the  Transvaal 
on  the  ground  that  the  Transvaal  being  subject  to  British  suzerainty  there 
could  be  no  international  relations  between  them. 


68        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

jealousy  of  each  other's  growth  gave  rise  to  the  theory 
of  the  balance  of  power. 

The  external  development  of  the  area,  over  which 
the  national  monarch  ruled,  reacted  upon  the  degree  of 
authority  which  he  exercised  within  his  dominions. 
Every  extension  of  his  sway  intensified  his  dignity  and 
power,  and  lifted  him  higher  above  his  subjects.  Local 
liberties  and  feudal  rights,  which  checked  a  Duke  of 
Brittany  or  King  of  Aragon,  were  powerless  against  a 
King  of  France  or  a  King  of  Spain.  Meetings  of  the 
Estates-General  in  France  grew  rarer  until  they  ceased 
altogether  in  1614.  In  Spain  the  Cortes  lost  control 
over  taxation  and  administration,  and  even  in  England 
it  seems  that  the  early  Tudors,  had  they  been  so 
minded,  might  have  dispensed  with  Parliament.  The 
sphere  of  royal  authority  encroached  upon  all  others ; 
all  functions  and  all  powers  tended  to  concentrate  in 
royal  hands.  The  king  was  the  emblem  of  national 
unity,  the  centre  of  national  aspirations,  and  the  object 
of  national  reverence.  In  France  and  Spain  men  had 
many  provincial  parliaments,  but  they  had  only  one 
king. 

This  monarch  gained  as  much  from  the  growth  of 
the  new  ideas  as  he  did  from  the  decay  of  the  old. 
The  Renaissance,  the  revived  study  of  Roman  Civil 
Law,  and  the  Reformation  itself  all  contributed  to  the 
growth  of  royal  absolutism.  There  seems  no  direct 
connection  between  the  study  of  Greek  and  political 
despotism ;  but  indirectly  the  passion  for  scholarship 
took  the  zest  out  of  politics.  Moreover,  scholars  who 
worked  with  their  pens  had  to  live  on  their  pensions ; 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  69 

and  pensions  are  more  easily  got  from  princes  than 
from  parliaments.  Parliaments  will  vote  huge  sums 
to  successful  generals,  but  never  a  penny  to  a  great 
scholar  or  sculptor,  poet  or  painter  ;  for  purely  intellec- 
tual achievements  are  not  as  yet  regarded  as  services 
to  the  State.  And  so  the  host  of  Renaissance  scholars 
looked  to  the  king  and  were  not  disappointed ;  every 
New  Monarch  was  in  his  way  a  new  Maecenas,  and  had 
his  reward  in  the  praise  of  the  world  of  letters,  which 
found  as  little  to  say  for  parliaments  as  parliaments 
found  to  give. 

The  Renaissance  did  a  more  direct  service  to  the 
New  Monarchy.  Men  turned  not  only  to  the  theology, 
literature  and  art  of  the  early  Christian  era ;  they  also 
began  to  study  anew  its  political  organisation  and  its 
system  of  law  and  jurisprudence.  The  code  of 
Justinian  was  as  much  a  revelation  as  the  original 
Greek  of  the  New  Testament.  Roman  Imperial  Law 
seemed  as  superior  to  the  barbarities  of  common  law 
and  feudal  custom,  as  classical  did  to  medieval  Latin. 
England  escaped  with  a  comparatively  mild  attack  of 
Roman  law,  because  she  had  early  been  inoculated 
with  it  under  Henry  II.  But  the  attack  proved  fatal 
to  maturer  constitutions  ;  and  Roman  Civil  Law  sup- 
planted indigenous  systems  in  France  and  Germany, 
in  the  Netherlands,  Spain  and  Scotland.  Notnmg 
could  have  suited  the  kings  of  the  New  Monarchy 
better;  common  law,  canon  law,  and  feudal  custom 
were  all  of  them  checks  upon  despotism.  The  Roman 
Civil  Law  could  be  used  against  all ;  quod  principi 
placuit  legis  habet  vigor  em  ran  the  maxim  of  Ulpian, 


70        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

a  maxim  which  could  be  quoted  against  Popes  as  well 
as  against  parliaments.  Nor  was  this  all ;  Roman 
emperors  were  habitually  deified,  and  men  in  the 
sixteenth  century  were  almost  inclined  to  pay  similar 
honours  to  their  kings. 

The  Reformation  itself  encouraged  this  tendency  of 
the  Renaissance ;  and  there  is  no  greater  error  than  to 
think  that  that  movement  had  anything  to  do  with 
political  liberty.  Protestantism,  it  is  true,  was  origi- 
nally an  appeal  to  private  judgment  against  authority, 
but  only  in  spiritual  matters.  Luther  explained  to 
the  rebellious  peasants  of  Germany  that  the  Gospel 
message  of  freedom  for  all  mankind  was  not  an  attack 
on  serfdom ;  and  even  in  the  spiritual  sphere  the 
Reformers  soon  fell  into  the  error  of  the  French 
Revolutionists  when  they  announced  their  intention  of 
compelling  men  to  be  free.  All  believed  in  fire  as  the 
proper  purge  of  heresy ;  they  only  differed  about  the 
heresy  and  about  the  rival  rights  of  Church  and  State 
to  prescribe  the  fire.  They  claimed  national  inde- 
pendence of  Rome,  but  repudiated  individual  right  to 
dissent  from  the  national  Church  or  the  national  State. 
For  the  State  they  asserted,  if  not  infallibility,  at  any 
rate  divine  institution  and  unlimited  authority  to 
enforce  its  will.  They  proclaimed  a  right  of  resistance 
to  the  Church  and  a  duty  of  passive  obedience  to  the 
State.  They  reverted  in  fact  to  the  political  theory 
of  the  primitive  Church ;  it  was  part  of  the  Renais- 
sance, the  revival  of  the  ancient,  and  repudiation  of 
the  medieval.  Now  the  primitive  Church  had  a  simple 
political  theory,  which  was  not  by  any  means  original. 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  71 

The  writers  of  the  New  Testament  and  the  Fathers  of 
the  Church  were  born  into  the  conditions  of  a  despotic 
system.  They  accepted  it  just  as  they  accepted 
slavery,  not  as  good  things  in  themselves  but  as  a 
divinely  ordained  remedy  or  punishment  for  the 
original  sin  of  man.  The  powers  that  be  are  ordained 
of  God,  said  St.  Paul  ;  and  working  on  this  basis, 
some  of  the  Fathers  developed  the  theory  that  the 
person  and  authority  of  the  ruler  were  so  sacred,  that 
resistance  to  him  was  equivalent  to  resistance  to  God 
Himself.  This  was  the  idea  borrowed  by  the  Re- 
formers. Cranmer  told  the  rebels  of  1549  that,  if  the 
whole  world  prayed  for  them  until  doomsday,  it  would 
avail  them  nothing,  unless  they  repented  of  their 
disobedience  to  their  king.  The  Reformers,  like  some 
early  Fathers,  transferred  the  divine  authority  of  the 
State,  whole  and  entire,  to  the  particular  ruler. 
Circumstances  required  a  saviour  of  society  and  the 
Reformation  consecrated  him.  *  The  new  Messiah  is 
the  king.' 

Nowhere  was  the  king  more  emphatically  the  saviour 
of  society  than  in  England.  The  sixty  years  of 
Lancastrian  rule  were  in  the  seventeenth  century 
represented  as  the  golden  age  of  parliamentary 
government,  a  sort  of  time  before  the  fall  to  which 
popular  orators  appealed  against  the  Stuart  despotism. 
The  Lancastrian  kings  were  at  the  mercy  of  their 
parliaments,  and  parliament  in  the  seventeenth  century 
wished  to  do  the  same  by  the  Stuarts ;  that  was  their 
idea  of  government.  But  to  keen  observers  of  the 
time  the  chief  characteristic  of  Lancastrian  rule  was 


72        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

its  'lack  of  governance,'  or  administrative  anarchy. 
The  limitations  of  parliament  were  never  more  striking 
than  when  its  power  stood  highest.  Even  in  the 
sphere  of  legislation,  the  Statute  Book  has  seldom  been 
so  barren.  Its  principal  acts  were  to  narrow  the  county 
electorate  to  an  oligarchy  by  restricting  the  franchise 
to  forty-shilling  freeholders,  excluding  leaseholders 
and  copyholders  altogether ;  and  to  confine  the  choice 
of  electors  to  local  men.  It  was  not  content  with 
legislative  authority  ;  it  interfered  with  the  executive, 
which  it  could  hamper  but  could  not  control.  It  was 
possessed  with  the  inveterate  fallacy  that  freedom  and 
strong  government  are  things  incompatible,  that  the 
executive  is  the  natural  enemy  of  the  legislature,  that 
if  one  is  strong  the  other  must  be  weak.  It  preferred 
a  weak  executive,  and  strove  to  compel  the  king  to 
'  live  of  his  own,'  when  *  his  own '  was  absolutely 
inadequate  to  meet  the  barest  necessities  of  admini- 
stration. It  failed  to  realise  that  liberty  without  order 
is  licence ;  that  order  must  be  established  before 
liberty  can  be  enjoyed  ;  and  that  a  strong  government 
is  the  only  means  of  enforcing  order.  Parliament  had 
acquired  power,  but  repudiated  responsibility  ;  and  the 
connecting  link  between  it  and  the  Crown  had  yet  to 
be  found  in  the  Cabinet.  Hence  the  Lancastrian 
experiment  ended  in  a  generation  of  civil  war,  and  the 
memory  of  that  anarchy  explains  much  of  the  Tudor 
despotism. 

The  problems  of  sixteenth-century  history  can  only 
be  solved  by  realising  the  misrule  of  the  previous 
age,  the  failure  of  parliamentary  government,  and  the 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  73 

strength  of  the  popular  demand  for  a  firm  and  master- 
ful hand  at  the  wheel.  There  is  a  modern  myth  that 
Englishmen  have  always  been  fired  with  enthusiasm 
for  constitutional  government  and  consumed  with  a 
thirst  for  the  vote.  That  is  the  result  of  ages  of 
parliamentary  rule ;  our  thoughts  are  cast  in  the 
mould  of  the  age  in  which  we  live ;  and  the  interpre- 
tation of  history,  like  that  of  the  Scriptures,  varies 
from  one  generation  to  another.  The  political  de- 
velopment of  the  nineteenth  century  created  a 
parliamentary  legend ;  and  civil  and  religious  liberty 
became  the  inseparable  stage  properties  of  the 
Englishman.  Whenever  he  came  on  the  boards,  he 
was  made  to  declaim  about  the  rights  of  the  subject 
and  the  privileges  of  parliament.  National  character 
was  supposed  to  have  been  always  the  same,  and  it 
was  assumed  that  the  desire  for  a  voice  in  the 
management  of  the  nation's  affairs  has  ever  been  the 
mainspring  of  an  Englishman's  action.  In  reality 
love  of  freedom  has  not  always  been,  and  may  not 
always  remain,  the  predominant  note  in  the  English 
mind.  At  times  the  English  people  have  pursued 
that  ideal  through  battle  and  murder  with  grim 
determination ;  but  on  other  occasions  the  popular 
demand  has  been  for  a  strong  government  irrespective 
of  its  methods,  and  good  government  has  been 
preferred  to  self-government.  Wars  of  expansion  and 
wars  of  defence  have  often  cooled  the  love  of  liberty 
and  impaired  the  faith  in  parliaments. 

So  it   was   in   sixteenth-century  England.     Parlia- 
ment had  been  tried  and  found  wanting.     '  A  plague 


74        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

on  both  your  Houses '  was  the  cry ;  and  both  Houses 
passed  out  of  the  range  of  popular  imagination  and 
almost  out  of  the  sphere  of  independent  political 
action.  Men  were  tired  of  politics ;  they  wanted 
peace,  peace  to  pursue  new  avenues  of  wealth,  to  study 
new  problems  of  literature,  art,  and  religion. 

They  cared  little  for  parliamentary  principles,  and 
vastly  preferred  that  the  king  should  levy  benevolences 
from  the  rich,  than  that  Parliament  should  impose 
taxes  on  the  poor.  They  did  not  feel  the  prick  of 
Morton's  Fork  nor  the  weight  of  Dudley's  Mills,  and 
Magna  Carta  was  buried  in  oblivion  ;  it  is  not  even 
mentioned  in  Shakespeare's  King  John.  A  well- 
known  actor-manager  thought  that  Shakespeare  had 
made  a  mistake ;  and,  when  he  produced  the  play 
a  few  years  ago,  he  interpolated  a  tableau  vivant 
representing  the  signature  of  that  famous  document, 
thus  destroying  the  unity  and  real  meaning  of  the 
play.  Shakespeare,  of  course,  was  faithfully  repre- 
senting the  spirit  of  his  age ;  he  appeals  to  the 
gallery  in  the  flamboyant  patriotism  of  Philip  the 
Bastard  : — 

This  England  never  did,  nor  never  shall, 

Lie  at  the  proud  foot  of  a  conqueror. 

But  when  she  first  did  help  to  wound  herself. 

Come  the  three  corners  of  the  world  in  arms. 

And  we  will  shock  them.     Nought  shall  make  us  rue, 

If  England  to  herself  do  rest  but  true. 

So  he  appeals  to  national  prejudice  against  Rome  in 
John's  denunciation  of  the  Pope  : — 

Thou  canst  not.  Cardinal,  devise  a  name 
So  slight,  unworthy,  and  ridiculous, 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  75 

To  charge  me  to  an  answer  as  the  Pope. 

Tell  him  this  tale  ;  and  from  the  mouth  of  England 

Add  thus  much  more  ;  no  Italian  priest 

Shall  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominions. 


But  an  appeal  to  Magna  Carta  would  have  left  a  Tudor 
audience  untouched.  The  men  of  that  day  needed  no 
charm  against  a  monarch  who  embodied  national 
aspirations  and  voiced  the  national  will.  References  to 
the  Charter  are  as  rare  in  the  debates  of  Parliament 
as  they  are  in  the  pages  of  Shakespeare.  Not  till  the 
Stuarts  came  was  Magna  Carta  discovered  ;  and  the 
best-hated  instruments  of  Stuart  tyranny  were  popular 
institutions  under  the  Tudors.  The  Star-Chamber 
itself  was  hampered  by  the  number  of  suitors,  who 
flocked  to  a  court  where  the  king  was  judge,  where 
both  the  law's  delays  and  counsel's  fees  were 
moderate,  and  where  justice  was  rarely  denied  merely 
because  it  might  happen  to  be  illegal.  England  in  the 
sixteenth  century  put  its  trust  in  its  princes  far  more 
than  it  did  in  its  Parliaments.  It  invested  them  with 
attributes  almost  divine  ;  no  one  but  a  Tudor  poet 
would  ever  have  thought  of  the  'Divinity  that  doth 
hedge  a  king ' ;  or  have  written  : — 

Not  all  the  water  in  the  rough,  rude  sea. 
Can  wash  the  balm  off  from  an  anointed  king. 
The  breath  of  worldly  men  cannot  depose 
The  deputy  elected  by  the  Lord. 

*  Love  for  the  King,'  wrote  a  Venetian  of  Henry  viii. 
in  his  early  years, '  is  universal  with  all  who  see  him  ; 
for  his  Highness  does  not  seem  a  person  of  this  world, 


ye        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

but  one  decended  from  Heaven.'     The  new  Messiah  is 
the  king. 

Such  were  the  tendencies  which  the  kings  of  the 
New  Monarchy  crystallised  into  practical  weapons  of 
absolute  government.  Royalty  had  become  a  caste 
apart ;  the  upper  slopes  of  the  feudal  pyramid  had  been 
swept  away  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  leaving  the  king 
alone  in  his  glory  at  the  top  of  an  unsurmountable  preci- 
pice. Marriages  between  peers  and  princesses  had  not 
been  rare  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  they  now  become 
almost  unknown.  Only  four  instances  have  occurred 
since  1485,  two  of  them  in  our  own  day.  One  only 
took  place  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  Duke  of 
Suffolk  was  thought  worthy  of  death  by  some  for  his 
presumption  in  marrying  the  sister  of  Henry  vili. 
By  1509  there  were  only  one  duke  and  one  marquis  left 
in  all  England.  The  few  peers  who  remained  of  the 
old  stock  were  excluded  from  government,  and  the 
New  Monarchs  chose  their  ministers  from  lawyers, 
churchmen,  and  middle-class  families.  They  could  be 
rewarded  with  bishoprics  and  judgeships,  and  required 
no  grants  from  the  Royal  estates ;  while  their  occu- 
pancy of  office  kept  out  territorial  magnates  who 
abused  it  for  their  own  private  ends.  Of  the  sixteen 
regents  nominated  by  Henry  viii.  in  his  will,  not  one 
could  boast  a  peerage  of  twelve  years'  standing.  The 
lawyers,  too,  were  civilians,  not  canonists  or  common 
lawyers  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  were  bred  in  the  absolutist 
maxims  of  imperial  Rome,  and  looked  to  their  prince 
for  their  all.  Ira  Principis  mors  est.  So  thought 
Wolsey  and  Norfolk  and  Warham.     *  Had  I  but  served 


THE  NEW  MONARCHY  yy 

my  God/  cried  Wolsey,  *  as  I  have  served  my  King/ 
That  cry  echoes  throughout  the  Tudor  age  ;  men  paid  to 
the  new  Messiah  the  worship  they  owed  to  the  old; 
they  reaped  their  reward  in  riches  and  pomp  and 
power  ;  but  they  won  no  peace  of  mind.  To  them  there 
was  nothing  strange  in  the  union  of  Church  and  State, 
and  in  the  supremacy  of  the  king  over  both  :  for,  while 
they  professed  Christianity  in  various  forms,  the  State 
was  their  real  religion,  and  the  king  was  their  Great 
High  Priest.  They  were  consumed  with  the  idea  that 
the  State  was  the  end  and  crown  of  human  endeavour  ; 
it  was  their  idol  and  their  ideal.  It  inspired  them,  and 
they  became  its  slaves.  This  is  the  real  tyranny  of 
Tudor  times ;  individual  life,  liberty,  and  conscience 
were  as  nothing  compared  with  national  interests. 
Nationalism  was  young,  presumptuous,  and  exigent; 
its  passion  had  no  patience  with  the  foes  to  its  desires, 
and  its  cruelty  was  only  equalled  by  its  vigour.  The 
New  Monarchy  was  the  emblem  and  the  focus  of  these 
forces  ;  it  had  a  great  and  an  indispensable  part  to  play 
in  the  making  of  modern  England ;  it  was  strong,  un- 
principled, and  efficient.  But  its  greatest  achievement 
was  that  its  success  made  the  repetition  of  such  an 
experiment  superfluous  for  the  future.  Order  is 
Heaven's  first  law ;  on  earth  it  must  always  go  before 
liberty.  England  could  not  have  done  without  the 
Tudors  and  all  their  works  ;  for  they  gave  us  law  and 
order.  They  prepared  the  way  of  liberty ;  and,  now 
to  us  who  enjoy  that  liberty,  their  works  and  their 
methods  are  hateful.  We  dream  of  revolutions  made 
with  rose-water,  and  think  that  peace  might  have  been 


78        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

won  by  persuasion.  It  might,  had  it  not  been  for 
human  nature.  Walking  would  be  much  easier,  if,  as 
the  Irishman  said,  you  could  only  wear  your  boots  six 
months  before  you  put  them  on.  And  the  Tudors 
might  have  shut  up  the  Tower,  and  turned  its  axes  and 
spears  into  pruning-hooks,  had  they  only  enjoyed  the 
fruits  of  the  storm  and  strife  of  the  last  three  centuries. 
Moral  and  political  principles  are  the  slow  and  painful 
achievement  of  ages  :  and  you  can  no  more  judge  the 
New  Monarchy  by  the  standards  of  to-day,  than  you 
can  apply  to  the  child  the  canons  by  which  you 
approve  or  condemn  the  adult.  To  use  the  same  test 
for  the  sixteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  is  to  imply 
that  man  stands  to-day  where  he  did  then,  and  to 
ignore  the  progress  of  four  hundred  years. 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION   79 


IV 

HENRY  VIII.   AND   THE   ENGLISH   REFORMATION 

In  our  last  lecture  we  endeavoured  to  examine  some  of 
the  causes  which  produced  the  phenomenon  called  the 
New  Monarchy,  and  to  show  how  circumstances  pre- 
disposed men's  minds  to  accept  a  despotism  and  called 
that  despotism  into  existence.  It  is  essential  to  bear 
these  things  in  recollection  when  we  come  to  deal  with 
Henry  Vlll.  and  the  Reformation  in  England  ;  for  both 
the  man  and  the  movement  would  have  been  impossible 
in  the  forms  they  took  without  the  New  Monarchy. 
Each  in  its  way  is  a  thorny  subject,  for  both  are 
matters  of  heated  controversy  to  this  day,  and  it  is  well- 
nigh  impossible  for  one  who  feels  deeply  on  theological 
questions  to  speak  in  a  reasonably  judicial  spirit  of 
Henry  Vlll.  On  the  other  hand  invective  is  as  easy 
in  his  case  as  hero-worship.  His  wives  cling  to  him 
more  closely  after  death  than  they  did  during  life,  and 
Bluebeard  is  his  most  familiar  nickname.  Froude,  as 
you  know,  was  inclined  to  reverse  the  picture,  and  to 
regard  Henry  as  the  victim  of  the  other  sex  ;  and  even 
Bishop  Stubbs  thought  that  the  personal  appearance  of 
Henry's  queens,  as  represented  in  their  portraits,  while 
it  does  not  excuse,  at  least  helps  to  explain  the  readi- 
ness with  which  he  discarded    them.      Perhaps   their 


8o        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

children,  or  rather  lack  of  children,  had  more  to  do  with 
it  than  their  looks.  At  any  rate  I  do  not  propose  to 
deal  in  this  place  with  the  wives  of  Henry  viii. ;  their 
importance  has  been  vastly  over-rated  ;  they  may  have 
been  figureheads  of  various  parties  and  policies,  but  a 
figurehead  is  not  a  very  essential  part  of  a  vessel.  We 
are  more  concerned  with  the  pilot  and  the  way  he 
weathered  the  storm. 

That  may  be  too  flattering  a  term  to  apply  to  Henry 
VIII.  He  has  often  been  painted  a  bold,  bad  man  ; 
but  recently  we  have  been  told  he  was  a  'flabby 
coward.'  Now  it  is  well  to  have  all  points  of  view 
represented ;  any  one  is  at  liberty  to  portray  Henry 
as  a  flabby  coward  or  as  a  bloodthirsty  villain.  But  I 
think  one  condition  should  be  observed  :  our  picture 
must  be  intelligible.  Our  account  of  Henry  VIII.  must 
be  an  answer  to  the  problem  presented  by  his  reign, 
and  we  must  explain  how  it  came  about  that  he  was 
allowed  to  do  the  things  he  did.  From  a  worldly  point 
of  view  he  was  perhaps  the  most  successful  of  English 
kings.  He  achieved  nearly  everything  he  tried  to 
achieve,  and  his  work  was  no  mere  transient  triumph. 
It  has  lasted  to  this  day  and  become  part  and  parcel  of 
England  as  we  know  it.  He  broke  the  bonds  of  Rome  ; 
he  subjected  the  Church  to  the  State ;  he  destroyed  the 
Monasteries  ;  he  completed  the  union  between  England 
and  Wales ;  he  defeated  the  French  and  the  Scots ;  he 
developed  the  parliamentary  system  ;  he  extended  and 
reformed  English  dominion  in  Ireland ;  he  built  up  the 
English  navy  ;  he  flouted  both  Empire  and  Papacy,  and 
crushed  with  comparative  ease  the  only  revolt  which 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    8i 

Englishmen  ventured  to  raise  up  against  him.  That 
does  not  exhaust  the  astonishing  catalogue  of  his  deeds  : 
he  had  bills  of  attainder  passed  against  half  the  English 
dukes  and  half  the  English  cardinals  who  lived  in  his 
reign.  Wolsey  escaped  the  Tower  by  death  on  the 
way  thither,  but  More,  Fisher  and  Cromwell  were  sent 
to  the  block.  He  divorced  two  queens,  he  beheaded  two 
others.  Parliament  gave  the  force  of  law  to  his  pro- 
clamations, released  him  from  his  debts,  and  empowered 
him  to  regulate  the  succession  by  will. 

Most  of  these  things,  it  is  true,  are  less  extraordinary 
than  they  look  at  first  sight.  Only  four  cardinals  and 
four  English  dukes  lived  in  his  reign ;  so  that  only 
two  were  attainted  and  only  one  of  each  was  actually 
brought  to  the  block  ;  and  of  these  two  Buckingham 
fell  a  victim  to  his  own  folly  and  to  Wolsey's  enmity 
rather  than  to  that  of  Henry  VIII.  It  was  only  within 
limits  prescribed  by  Parliament  that  Henry's  pro- 
clamations had  the  force  of  law ;  and  he  was  not 
empowered  to  leave  the  Crown  away  from  any  one 
whose  title  was  undisputed ;  he  could  not  have  left 
it  from  Edward  VI.  The  cancelling  of  his  debts  was 
probably  popular,  because  it  meant  that  a  burden, 
which  would  otherwise  have  fallen  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  mass,  was  left  on  those  of  a  few  rich  creditors, 
who  had  themselves  profited  largely  by  Henry's 
spoliation  of  the  Church,  Even  in  the  matter  of 
wives  Henry  only  beheaded  two  out  of  six ;  and  of 
those  two,  one  was  certainly,  and  the  other  probably, 
guilty.  And  the  wife  who  survived  him  had  already 
survived  two  other  husbands  without  leaving  a  stain 
on  her  character. 

F 


82        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

These  qualifications  must  be  made,  but  after  they 
have  been  made  there  remains  a  remarkable  sum ; 
and  the  problem  is  to  account  for  Henry's  success, 
especially  if  we  regard  him  as  a  flabby  coward  or  a 
bloodthirsty  tyrant  whose  deeds  were  hateful  to  his 
generation.  There  is  no  objection  to  calling  him  all 
these  things,  provided  that  you  make  them  harmonise 
with  a  rational  explanation  of  this  coward's  or  this 
tyrant's  astonishing  success.  But  the  more  cowardly 
or  the  more  tyrannical  you  make  him  out  to  be,  the 
more  difficult  you  make  your  own  and  your  real  task 
of  solving  the  problem  of  his  reign,  of  explaining  how 
it  was  that  Henry  accomplished  so  much,  and  how  it 
was  that  his  work  lasted  so  long.  Flabby  cowards  are 
not  as  a  rule  successful  revolutionists,  and  measures 
which  depend  solely  upon  the  tyranny  of  one  man  do 
not  become  part  of  a  nation's  policy  and  of  a  people's 
conscience.  And  it  is  not  open  to  any  self-respecting 
student  of  history  to  fling  these  charges  and  to  leave 
unexplained  the  problems  they  create.  Of  course,  if 
your  object  is  to  dress  up  history  to  look  and  sell 
like  a  shilling  shocker,  you  may  do  it  with  some 
impunity  and  some  success  ;  but  then  you  only  appeal 
to  an  audience  which  has  never  realised  that  history 
is  a  problem,  or  in  fact  that  it  ever  happened  at  all. 
The  events  described  in  a  shilling  shocker  never 
happened,  and  therefore  there  is  no  necessity  to  ex- 
plain them.  The  events  recorded  in  history  did  take 
place,  and  therefore  we  have  to  make  them  intelligible. 

Personally,  I  do  not  think  that  much  can  be  said 
for  Henry's  moral  character.     I  do  not  believe  in  the 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    83 

portrait  of  him  as  a  much-maligned  hero  labouring 
for  the  good  of  his  people ;  the  altruistic  motive  was, 
it  seems  to  me,  entirely  absent  from  his  composition. 
If  he  laboured,  and  he  did,  at  the  work  of  statesman- 
ship and  to  make  the  nation  strong,  it  was  in  order 
that  he  might  be  great.  If  he  was  not  maliciously 
cruel  to  the  mass  of  his  subjects,  it  was  because  he 
knew  that  they  would  not  stand  it.  If  he  consulted 
their  prejudices  and  interests,  as  he  did,  it  was  because 
he  knew  that  his  own  position  depended  on  popular 
support ;  he  made  too  many  enemies  to  be  indifferent 
to  the  goodwill  of  his  people.  To  individuals  he  was 
relentless,  partly  because  pity  was  foreign  to  his  nature, 
and  partly  because  he  knew  that  he  could  afford  to  put 
down  the  mighty,  provided  he  spared  the  humble  and 
meek.  Parcere  subjectis  et  debellare  superbos  is  the 
mission  attributed  by  Vergil  to  the  Roman  Empire : 
it  was  the  practice  of  Henry  viii. :  in  both  cases  it 
was  a  profitable  and  not  an  unsound  policy.  Egotism 
was  the  mainspring  of  his  action,  the  basis  of  his 
character,  and  the  root  of  his  vices ;  and  egotism  is 
a  fault  which  princes  can  hardly  and  Tudors  could 
nowise  avoid.  When  you  worship  a  man  like  a  god, 
you  are  doing  your  best  to  make  him  a  devil ;  and 
some  of  the  responsibility  for  Henry's  egotism  must 
be  laid  at  the  door  of  his  people,  for  they  acquiesced  in 
his  strong  and  unscrupulous  rule  in  return  for  the 
attention  he  paid  to  their  material  interests.  They 
thought  him  the  only  alternative  to  anarchy  and  a 
renewal  of  civil  war :  and  with  all  his  vices,  they 
preferred  Henry  viii.     His  personal  morality  was  not 


84        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

worse  than  that  of  most  princes,  and  the  number  of 
his  wives  is  no  great  argument  against  him  ;  indeed 
the  fact  that  he  married  them  might  almost  be  taken 
as  a  sign  of  grace  in  a  king.  Charles  II.  only  married 
one  wife,  and  he  divorced  none ;  but  that  hardly  places 
his  morals  above  those  of  Henry  Vlll. 

Henry,  of  course,  made  no  sort  of  appeal  to  the 
ethical  nature  of  men.  He  appealed  to  their  patriotism ; 
but,  as  Dr,  Johnson  said,  patriotism  is  the  last  refuge 
of  scoundrels,  and  its  ethical  value  is  sometimes 
abused.  This,  however,  was  no  bar  to  his  popularity. 
Charles  li.  was  more  popular  than  Cromwell,  in  spite 
of  his  lack  of  patriotism.  The  truth  is  that  nations 
and  parties  are  strongly  tempted  to  condone  the 
private  vices  of  their  champions.  Protestants  hush  up 
the  backslidings  of  Henry  of  Navarre  and  William  III., 
and  Catholics  those  of  Mary  Stuart  and  James  li. ; 
and  the  peccadilloes  of  Henry  vill.  were  viewed  with 
a  lenient  eye  by  people  who  welcomed  the  breach 
with  Rome,  the  suppression  of  clerical  privilege,  and 
the  conversion  of  monastic  wealth  to  national  or  at 
least  to  secular  purposes.  The  fact  is  that  Henry  was 
as  much  a  demagogue  as  a  despot  ;  he  led  his  people 
in  the  way  they  wanted  to  go  ;  he  tempted  them  with 
the  baits  they  coveted  most ;  and  he  appealed  to  the 
most  cherished  of  national  prejudices.  He  did  not 
tread  on  their  toes ;  he  used  Parliament,  but  he  did 
not  seek  to  destroy  it.  He  upheld  Catholic  doctrine 
as  a  whole,  because  he  saw  that  the  mass  of  the  people 
were  not  prepared  for  theological  change.  But  when, 
towards  the  end  of  his  reign,  he  saw  that,  in  spite  of 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    85 

the  Six  Articles  and  other  methods  of  coercion,  re- 
formed opinions  were  making  way,  he  prepared  himself 
to  make  further  alterations ;  and  the  Protector  Somerset 
only  carried  out  the  changes  which  were  being  secretly 
elaborated  during  the  last  few  months  of  Henry's  life. 

All  this  may  be  described  as  utterly  unscrupulous ; 
and  rightly  so,  because  religion  should  be  kept  clean 
from  the  compromise  which  dominates  politics.  High 
and  dry  Tories  have  in  recent  years  accepted  the  fact 
of  democracy  though  they  opposed  its  advent;  and 
there  is  nothing  disgraceful  in  their  doing  so.  But  to 
accept  a  change  of  religion  from  the  same  motives 
is  unprincipled,  and  so  was  Henry's  readiness  to 
accept  a  doctrinal  reformation.  It  was  what  is  called 
Machiavellian,  and  indeed  Henry  Vlll.  is  Machiavelli's 
Prince  in  action.  Expediency  was  the  test  of  every- 
thing and  not  principle ;  religion  was  to  be  subservient 
to  the  interests  of  the  State.  Fair  means  and  foul 
might  alike  be  employed  if  the  end  was  the  national 
welfare.  The  common  law,  the  Ten  Commandments, 
were  all  very  well  as  a  general  rule,  but  the  highest 
law  of  all  was  the  safety  of  the  State — or  the  Church. 
For  the  same  maxims  were  employed  in  the  service  of 
the  Church ;  it  was  almost  a  commonplace  that  faith 
need  not  be  kept  with  heretics,  and  that  killing  was  no 
murder  when  it  served  a  political  or  an  ecclesiastical 
end.  Nor  was  this  only  a  maxim  of  the  schools.  The 
fate  of  William  the  Silent,  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  illus- 
trates the  practice  ;  and  the  bulls  of  excommunication 
against  Henry  vill.  and  Elizabeth  were,  among  other 
things,  licences  and  exhortations  to  kill  in  the  open  or 


86        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

in  secret.  Every  one,  except  the  victim,  agreed  that  it 
was  better  that  one  man  should  die  than  that  the 
nation  should  suffer. 

Acts  of  Attainder  are  simply  solemn  and  national 
assertions  of  this  doctrine.  They  illustrate  another 
Machiavellian  maxim  practised  by  the  Tudors,  namely, 
that  while  the  prince  should  reserve  to  himself  the 
privilege  of  mercy,  he  should  devolve  on  others  the 
odium  of  rigour.  An  act  of  pardon  or  restitution,  even 
when  passed  by  Parliament,  was  read  only  once  in  either 
House,  and  then  without  amendment  and  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  because  it  was  regarded  as  especially  a  royal 
act.  But  an  Act  of  Attainder  was  to  be  regarded  as  an 
Act  of  the  Nation  represented  by  Parliament :  it  went 
through  all  the  usual  forms.  That  was  the  function 
of  Acts  of  Attainder.  There  is  a  ridiculous  notion 
prevalent  that  they  were  substituted  for  trial  by  jury 
because  it  was  easier  to  get  an  Act  through  Parliament 
than  to  obtain  a  verdict  from  a  jury.  Nothing  could 
be  more  untrue  ;  it  was  simplicity  itself  to  pack  a  jury ; 
it  was  no  easy  matter  to  pack  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment. Moreover,  many  Acts  of  Attainder  were  passed 
against  men  who  had  been  already  condemned  by 
juries.  There  are  only  two  or  three  instances  like  that 
of  Thomas  Cromwell,  in  which  men  were  executed 
without  legal  trial  ;  and  the  House  of  Lords,  which 
unanimously  passed  the  Attainder  against  Cromwell, 
would  have  quite  as  readily  condemned  him  when 
sitting  as  a  court  of  his  Peers.  The  motive  of  Acts 
of  Attainder  was  to  make  the  whole  nation  as  far  as 
possible  the  accomplice  of  the  king  in  these  acts  of 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    87 

severity.  Elizabeth's  anxiety  to  do  this  in  the  case 
of  Mary  Stuart  is  notorious ;  she  insisted  on  shifting 
the  responsibility,  and  Parliament  was  ferociously  eager 
to  assume  it. 

The  treason  laws  themselves  are  merely  expressions 
of  this  idea,  that  the  security  of  the  State  is  the  first  of 
all  political  objects,  and  that  expediency  may  override 
justice.  Traitors  are  not  condemned  because  they  are 
immoral,  but  because  they  are  dangerous.  Lady  Jane 
Grey  was  almost  a  saint,  but  her  execution  for  treason 
was  strictly  legal ;  the  same  may  be  said  of  Sir 
Thomas  More,  and  of  other  victims  of  Henry  Vill. 
'  Truth  for  ever  on  the  scaffold,  wrong  for  ever  on  the 
throne,'  is  not  a  hopelessly  false  caricature  of  that  time; 
but  the  sovereign  should  not  be  made  the  scape-goat 
for  all  the  nation's  sins.  In  a  democratic  age  history 
tends  to  become  a  series  of  popular  apologies.  Grote 
began  it  in  England  with  his  defence  of  the  Athenian 
people  for  the  execution  of  Socrates.  But  the  idea 
that  the  people  can  do  no  wrong  is  as  absurd  as  the 
notion  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong.  A  people  in  a 
passion  is  just  as  irrational  as  a  prince  in  a  passion, 
and  is  capable  of  even  greater  crimes.  Popular 
passions  were  strong  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
the  violent  deeds  of  the  Tudors  were  the  practical 
expressions  of  popular  feeling.  There  is  no  evidence 
of  popular  disgust  at  any  of  the  executions  of  that 
time,  except  perhaps  that  of  Protector  Somerset. 
Mary's  holocaust  did  indeed  produce  an  impression  ; 
but  that  was  because  she  abandoned  Tudor  maxims, 
and  sought  victims  among  the  people. 


88        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

This  popular  acquiescence  in  Tudor  methods  is  not 
a  pleasant  retrospect ;  but  it  must  not  be  denied  on 
that  account.  The  Tudors  had  no  means  of  resisting 
a  determined  nation.  Henry  VIII.'s  standing  army 
consisted  of  a  few  yeomen  of  the  guard  and  gentle- 
men-pensioners ;  he  had  no  secret  police  or  organised 
bureaucracy  ;  his  only  fortress  of  commanding  strength 
was  the  Tower  of  London,  and  Charles  v.'s  ambassador 
thought  that  in  1534  it  would  be  easier  to  drive  him 
from  the  throne  than  it  had  been  Richard  III.  He 
mistook  the  temper  of  the  people;  the  Pilgrims  of 
Grace  had  little  difficulty  in  overrunning  England 
north  of  the  Trent  in  1536.  Had  England  south  of 
the  Trent  been  of  the  same  mind,  Henry  viil.'s  govern- 
ment would  have  succumbed  without  a  blow.  He  was 
saved  by  the  voluntary  efforts  of  the  mass  of  his 
subjects ;  the  Pilgrimage  was  not  suppressed  by  pro- 
fessional soldiers  or  foreign  mercenaries,  but  by  English 
yeomen.  There  was  only  one  occasion  on  which 
England  rose  as  one  man  against  the  government ; 
that  was  when  Northumberland  tried  to  set  aside  the 
Tudor  dynasty,  and  then  the  national  will  prevailed 
without  one  drop  of  blood  being  spilt.  We  are  there- 
fore forced  to  the  conclusion  that  Henry  Vlli.  on  the 
whole  represented  the  wishes  of  the  majority  of  the 
English  people,  or  at  least  of  the  politically  effective 
portion  of  the  people.  That  does  not  mean  that 
individual  acts  were  popular ;  the  divorce  of  Catherine 
of  Aragon  never  was,  nor  was  the  execution  of  Sir 
Thomas  More.  But  these  acts  did  not  disgust  the 
people  so   far   as  to   make  them  seek  a  change  of 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    89 

government.  There  was  in  fact  no  opposition  pre- 
pared to  take  office  in  Henry's  place ;  no  rival  had 
even  a  plausible  claim  to  the  throne.  Charles  v.  had 
thought  at  one  time  that  the  Princess  Mary  might  be 
substituted  for  her  father;  but  Englishmen  were  not 
likely  to  prefer  a  half-Spanish  queen,  who  would  be 
merely  an  agent  for  Charles,  to  the  English  king ; 
and  Charles  himself  soon  abandoned  the  idea  as 
hopeless.  The  Papal  system  of  jurisdiction  had  few 
adherents  in  England,  and  Henry  was  very  careful 
about  touching  Catholic  doctrine. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  Henry  survived  papal 
threats,  imperial  preparations,  and  domestic  faction  ; 
and  went  on  step  by  step  adding  to  the  royal  auto- 
cracy. The  history  of  his  reign  is  one  of  gradual 
development,  both  of  character  and  of  policy.  In  his 
early  years  he  was  a  slave  of  Vanity  Fair ;  athletics 
were  his  passion,  and  in  the  hunting  field,  the  tennis 
court,  the  tourney,  and  the  ball-room,  he  was  more 
than  a  match  for  the  best  of  his  subjects.  Serious 
matters  of  statecraft  were  left  to  Wolsey,  who  was 
king  in  everything  but  name,  although  from  the 
first  Henry  took  a  profound  interest  in  the  Navy,  in 
learning,  and  in  theology.  His  book  against  Luther, 
which  was  the  work  of  his  own  brain,  is  a  remarkable 
performance  for  a  king ;  and  Erasmus  speaks,  not  only 
of  the  zeal,  but  of  the  courtesy  and  good-temper,  with 
which  Henry  conducted  the  theological  discussions 
which  were  then  the  fashion  at  court.  No  previous 
king  had  been  so  well  educated ;  he  knew  Latin, 
French,  Spanish,  and  some  Greek    he  was  a  first-rate 


90        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

performer  on  musical  instruments  ;  and  one  at  least  of 
his  anthems  is  still  occasionally  sung  in  English 
Cathedrals.  As  time  wore  on,  the  athletic  mania  wore 
off;  and  Henry  began  to  take  an  active  interest  in 
administration  ;  this  alone  would  in  the  end  have  been 
fatal  to  Wolsey's  position,  for  Henry  had  to  be  master 
in  whatever  sphere  he  chose  to  shine. 

Wolsey's  policy  had,  moreover,  been  anything  but  a 
success.  One  of  the  greatest  of  English  diplomatists, 
Wolsey  was  nevertheless  bound  to  fail  because  he 
fought  against  the  strongest  forces  of  his  age.  In  this 
respect  he  was  like  Metternich,  another  great  diploma- 
tist, who  sought  by  diplomatic  means  to  put  back  the 
hands  of  Time.  By  peace  and  parsimony  Henry  vii. 
had  secured  for  England  real  wealth  and  a  still  greater 
reputation  for  it.  Wolsey,  turbulent  and  ambitious, 
used  this  wealth  to  foster  England's  and  his  own 
influence  on  the  continent.  He  was  favoured  by  the 
intense  rivalry  between  Charles  V.  and  Francis  I. ;  and 
at  the  Conference  of  Calais  in  1521  he  figured  as  the 
arbiter  of  Europe.  This  proud  position  was  not 
supported  by  adequate  military  strength  ;  it  depended 
on  Wolsey's  skill  and  on  England's  wealth,  which 
enabled  her  to  act  as  the  paymaster  of  Europe.  But 
by  1523  the  balance  at  Henry's  bank  had  disappeared  ; 
fresh  taxation  became  necessary  and  recourse  to 
Parliament.  The  Commons  proved  refractory,  and 
granted  inadequate  supplies.  Wolsey  next  tried  loans 
and  benevolences ;  many  counties  resisted,  and 
ominous  words  were  used.  It  was  obvious  that  the 
nation  would  not  find  the  means  for  Wolsey's  spirited 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    91 

foreign  policy;  and  the  Treaty  of  Cambrai  in  1529, 
which  settled  the  affairs  of  Europe  for  the  time,  was 
arranged  without  consulting  Wolsey.  His  influence 
which  had  gone  up  like  a  rocket,  came  down  like  the 
stick.  His  diplomatic  judgment  also  had  been  at 
fault.  England  was  not  really  the  arbiter,  but  only  the 
makeweight,  in  the  European  balance ;  her  influence 
depended  on  the  maintenance  of  that  balance.  But  in 
1 521  Wolsey  put  the  weight  in  the  wrong  scale.  The 
result  was  that  at  Pavia  in  1525  France  was  utterly 
defeated,  and  Charles  V.  became  almost  dictator  of 
Europe.  The  feeble  efforts  of  Wolsey  to  restore  the 
balance  between  1526  and  1528  only  confirmed  the 
verdict  of  Pavia.  Wolsey's  policy  had  failed  at  home 
and  abroad  :  it  was  time  for  a  change  of  system. 

Nor  was  this  all  :  in  the  Parliament  of  15 15  ominous 
complaints  were  brought  against  the  exactions  and 
privileges  of  the  Church.  Most  dangerous  quarrels, 
records  the  Clerk  of  Parliament,  broke  out  between 
the  laity  and  the  clergy ;  and  Wolsey  in  alarm  urged 
upon  Henry  the  speedy  dissolution  of  Parliament. 
Hitherto,  since  Henry's  accession,  there  had  been  a 
meeting  of  Parliament  on  an  average  once  a  year: 
now  eight  years  passed  before  another  was  called. 
Financial  difficulties  compelled  the  summons  of  that 
of  1523,  but  from  that  year  not  another  was  called 
till  Wolsey's  fall.  Why  this  sudden  abandonment  of 
Parliamentary  sessions  in  1 515?  In  an  address  to  an 
early  Parliament  of  the  reign,  Warham,  who  was  Lord 
Chancellor  as  well  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  had 
insisted  upon  the  necessity  of  frequently  consulting 


92        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Parliament.  What  had  caused  that  necessity  to  dis- 
appear? The  anti-clerical  proceedings  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  15 1 5  supply  the  answer.  Wolsey  dreaded  an 
attack  on  the  Church :  keen-sighted  observers  were 
already  muttering  about  its  coming  subversion.  The 
clergy,  it  was  said  in  15 13,  were  so  unpopular  that  a 
London  jury  would  convict  a  clerk,  were  he  as  innocent 
as  Abel.  The  Pope  had  been  openly  denounced  ;  heresy 
was  spreading,  and  in  151 1  Henry's  Latin  Secretary 
complained  to  Erasmus  that  the  holocaust  of  heretics  had 
caused  the  price  of  wood  to  rise.  Now  Wolsey's  position 
and  prospects  were  bound  up  with  the  maintenance  of 
the  ecclesiastical  and  Papal  system.  His  immense 
authority  as  Cardinal  and  Legate  was  merely  a  Papal 
agency ;  it  would  disappear  with  the  abolition  of  the 
Papal  jurisdiction.  Parliament  must  therefore  be  kept 
at  arm's  length  lest  it  should  attack  the  Church.  And 
so  he  sought  for  fourteen  years  to  rule  without  Parlia- 
ment and  by  means  of  clerical  influence.  Under  his 
regime  the  chief  ministers  were  ecclesiastics,  much  to 
the  disgust  of  the  secular  nobility,  who  soon  began  to 
cast  about  for  means  to  ruin  Wolsey  and  destroy  the 
political  predominance  of  the  Church.  The  failure  of 
Wolsey's  policy  delivered  him  into  their  hands  in  1529. 
Now  all  this  was  independent  of  the  question  of 
divorce,  to  which  the  whole  Reformation  in  England 
has  been  most  inaccurately  ascribed.  The  divorce 
was  merely  the  occasion  of  a  Reformation,  which 
would  certainly  have  come  without  it.  It  is  not 
possible  to  believe  that  England  would  have  remained 
permanently  within  the  Roman  Catholic  Communion 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION   93 

when  every  other  country,  in  which  Teutonic  strains 
were  dominant,  broke  away.  The  importance  of  the 
divorce  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  alienated  from  the  Papal 
cause  the  monarchy,  which  might  for  a  time  have 
postponed  the  rupture.  Henry  Vlll.  was  not  omnipo- 
tent ;  no  ruler  can  accomplish  anything  except  with 
the  help  of  collaborating  forces  ;  and  he  would  never 
have  been  able  to  repudiate  the  Roman  jurisdiction, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  popular  dislike  of  clerical 
privilege  and  Papal  control.  Henry  was  able  to  turn 
the  balance ;  and  it  was  the  Pope's  refusal  to  grant 
him  a  divorce  from  Catherine  of  Aragon,  which  first 
inclined  Henry  against  the  jurisdiction,  which  he  had 
defended  with  so  much  zeal  against  Luther. 

The  divorce,  as  we  must  call  it  (though  the  Pope 
said  there  was  no  divorce,  and  Henry  said  there  had 
been  no  marriage),  was  itself  the  outcome  of  various 
circumstances.  Anne  Boleyn  was  certainly  not  the  only 
or  the  principal  one  of  them;  for  as  early  as  15 14, 
when  Anne  was  only  seven  years  old,  there  were 
rumours  at  Rome  that  Henry  intended  seeking  a 
divorce  from  Catherine  because  she  failed  to  produce 
the  requisite  heir  to  the  throne.  That  was  the  real 
question.  Henry  VIII.  had  no  surviving  brothers  and 
no  legitimate  sons.  The  succession  of  females  to  the 
English  throne  was  not  recognised.  The  Lancastrian 
title  had  been  based  upon  the  denial  of  this  right ; 
Henry  vii.'s  own  mother  had  been  excluded  although 
all  his  hereditary  claim  was  derived  through  her. 
Matilda  was  the  only  woman  who  had  tried  to  seize 
the  English  throne ;  and  no  one  desired  a  repetition  of 


94        FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

that  experiment.  Apart  from  domestic  disputes  the 
succession  of  women  seemed  to  threaten  national  inde- 
pendence. The  succession  of  Isabella  of  Castile  had 
been  followed  by  its  union  with  Aragon  :  that  of  Anne 
of  Brittany  by  its  incorporation  with  France :  that  of 
Mary  of  Burgundy  by  its  absorption  in  the  Hapsburg 
dominions.  England  did  not  wish  to  be  absorbed  by 
any  other  State.  She  did  not  mind  absorbing  Scotland, 
but  that  was  a  different  matter.  She  wanted  an 
English  king  and  Henry  viii.  a  legitimate  heir.  By 
1525  it  was  certain  that  neither  wish  would  be  fulfilled 
so  long  as  he  remained  married  to  Catherine.  He 
thought  at  first  of  recognising  his  illegitimate  son,  the 
Duke  of  Richmond,  as  his  successor.  Possibly  it  was 
the  appearance  of  Anne  Boleyn  which  decided  him  to 
prefer  a  divorce.  There  were  precedents  enough  in  his 
immediate  family  circle:  both  the  husbands  of  his 
sister  Mary  had  been  divorced  by  Papal  sanction,  and 
the  same  favour  was  accorded  to  his  other  sister 
Margaret.  Not  so  very  long  before,  a  king  of  Castile 
had  been  licensed  by  the  Pope  to  take  a  second  wife, 
on  condition  that  if  within  a  certain  period  he  had  no 
issue  he  should  return  to  the  first ;  and  Clement  vii. 
himself  was  inclined  to  favour  a  similar  solution  of 
Henry's  problem.  But  he  could  not,  and  he  would 
not,  grant  the  divorce.  He  was  perfectly  frank  about 
his  reasons :  the  Church,  i.e.  himself  and  Rome,  were, 
as  his  secretary  wrote  to  Campeggio,  completely  in  the 
power  of  Charles  v.,  Catherine's  nephew.  The  defeat 
of  Francis  I.  at  Pavia  had  led  to  the  establishment  of 
Spanish  dominion  in  Italy:  the  sack  of  Rome  in  1527 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION   95 

had  emphasised  that  fact,  and  in  1529  the  Pope  made 
his  humble  peace  with  Charles.  That  bargain  was 
almost  a  family  compact ;  the  Pope's  nephew  was  to 
marry  the  Emperor's  illegitimate  daughter,  and  the 
divorce  proceedings  in  England  were  to  be  quashed. 

Thus  was  the  breach  provoked,  and  the  Reformation 
begun.  Henry  appealed  from  the  Pope  to  Parliament ; 
and  a  working  alliance  was  formed  between  King 
and  Parliament  against  Pope  and  Church.  Parliament 
wanted  the  restriction  of  clerical  privilege,  powers,  and 
jurisdiction ;  Henry  wanted  the  abolition  of  Papal 
control  and  of  the  legislative  independence  of  the 
Church.  The  first  thing  was  to  fill  the  government 
with  laymen  instead  of  ecclesiastics.  Wolsey  fell  as  a 
matter  of  course  :  the  offices  of  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord 
Privy  Seal,  and  Secretary  were  transferred  to  laymen, 
who  since  1529  have,  with  the  exception  of  Mary's 
reign,  always  governed  England.  Then,  one  after 
another  of  the  outworks  of  the  Papal  system  fell, 
First-fruits  and  Tenths,  Appellate  jurisdiction,  power 
of  appointing  bishops,  and  so  forth.  Now  it  might 
have  been  supposed  that  this  destruction  of  the  Papal 
domination  would  have  liberated  the  English  Church. 
But  nothing  was  further  from  the  mind  of '  the  majestic 
lord  who  broke  the  bonds  of  Rome ' ;  and  every  step 
in  the  annihilation  of  Papal  control  was  accompanied 
by  another  towards  the  establishment  of  royal  con- 
trol. First-fruits  and  Tenths  were  not  abolished  :  they 
were  transferred  from  Pope  to  King,  and  so  was 
the  power  of  appointing  bishops,  for  the  pretence  of 
election  cannot  be  regarded  as  anything  more   than 


96         FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

a  solemn  farce ;  episcopal  chapters  were  granted 
licence  to  elect,  but  they  were  liable  to  praemunire 
if  they  did  not  elect  the  king's  nominee:  and  no 
chapter  yet  has  braved  that  penalty.  The  Church  did 
not  become  autonomous  ;  supremacy  was  simply  taken 
from  the  Pope  and  given  to  the  King. 

This  truth  is  wormwood  and  gall  to  many  of  us 
to-day  with  our  belief  in  religious  freedom:  and 
criticism  of  the  Reformation  is  directed  not  so  much 
at  what  was  done,  as  the  way  in  which  it  was  done. 
The  Church  in  England,  it  is  said,  should  have  been 
liberated  from  Rome  and  then  left  to  work  out  her 
own  salvation.  That  was  not  a  solution  which  occurred 
to  any  one  then,  and  it  was  not  practical  politics.  The 
strife  was  not  between  the  Church  of  England  and  the 
Church  of  Rome,  but  between  the  universal  Church  and 
national  State,  as  it  had  been  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages.  These  were  the  only  two  recognised  authorities, 
the  only  powers  capable  of  carrying  out  the  Refor- 
mation. All  ecclesiastical  powers  were  in  theory 
derived  from  the  Papacy :  the  archbishop  exercised 
jurisdiction,  but  only  as  legatus  natus  of  the  Pope : 
Wolsey  tried  to  reform  some  monasteries,  but  only  as 
Papal  legate :  they  were  agents  of  the  Pope,  and  an 
agent  is  bound  by  his  master's  will.  When  they 
act  against  it,  they  are  acting  ultra  vires.  Now  the 
Papacy  had  refused  to  reform  :  General  Councils  had 
tried  in  the  fifteenth  century  and  had  failed.  The 
work  was  left  to  the  national  State,  which  could  act  on 
its  own  authority.  Hence  Parliament,  and  not  Con- 
vocation, is  the  instrument  of  reform  :  the  measures  of 
the  Reformation  are  not  canon  laws,  but  Parliamentary 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORAAIION/ 97  ;•.  ;; 

statutes  :  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer .it^lf  is  J^^Uj^. »,  ,  . 
a  schedule  of  an   Act  of  Parliament.     It   cannot' be***  '*  • 
altered  by  Convocation,  it  can  by  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment.    The  Reformation  in  its  external  and  constitu- 
tional aspect  is  simply  the  last  and  greatest  conquest       ^ 
of  the  State,  the  assertion  of  its  authority  over  the 
Church,   and   of  its   absolute,   undisputed    supremacy 
within  the  national  frontiers. 

The  result  was  to  nationalise  the  Church,  to  transform 
it  from  the  Church  in  England  into  the  Church  0/ 
England,  to  make  its  services,  ritual,  and  articles  of 
faith  national  rather  than  catholic.  The  breach  once 
accomplished  with  Rome,  differentiation  set  in  by  a 
law  of  nature.  The  'Bible  was  made  English ;  an 
English  Litany  was  compiled,  then  an  English  Order 
of  Communion,  and  then  an  English  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  enforced  by  an  English  Act  of  Uniformity. 
Finally  an  English  definition  of  the  faith  in  the  shape 
of  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles  was  evolved.  All  these 
things  were  intensely  national,  for  the  spirit  which 
produced  them  was  that  of  national  revolt.  The  same 
spirit  had  something  to  do  with  the  dissolution  of 
the  monasteries  :  they  were  the  least  national  of  all 
ecclesiastical  institutions :  everything  about  them  was 
cosmopolitan,  and  they  were  regarded  as  the  most 
obstinate  papal  strongholds.  It  was  difficult  to 
harmonise  them  with  a  national  system,  and  so  they 
disappeared.  There  were  of  course  other  and  more 
material  reasons.  Their  wealth  was  an  irresistible 
temptation  to  Henry  Vlll.,  and  it  provided  him  with 
an  irresistible  lever.      Monastic  spoils  were  held  out 


98\/'JR/!:(?.T?ORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

•^^'^''J&iit  'i:o;,Henry's  nobles,  landed  gentry,  and  com- 
itiercial  magnates  to  confirm  their  zeal  and  faith  in 
Reformation  principles.  It  was  understood  during 
the  Reformation  Parliament  that  monastic  lands 
should  be  the  reward  for  their  support  against  Rome. 
But  even  greed  was  not  the  ultimate  cause  of  the 
dissolution.  It  is  probable  that  kings  and  nobles 
were  greedy  for  land  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  but  they  did  not  dare  to  attack  the  monas- 
teries. The  real  cause  was  that  monastic  life  had  lost 
its  savour.  Testimony  to  this  fact  is  not  confined  to 
the  famous  '  Black  Book '  compiled  by  Cromwell's 
visitors,  which  disappeared  in  Mary's  reign.  A 
commission  of  cardinals  appointed  by  Paul  III. 
acknowledged  the  existence  of  widespread  abuses, 
and  every  country  in  Europe  found  it  necessary  to 
adopt  sweeping  measures  of  monastic  confiscation. 
France,  Austria,  and  even  Spain  followed  the  example 
of  Henry  VIII.  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  England 
had  already  outstripped  them  in  the  race  for  national 
greatness.  And  over  and  above  these  comparatively 
sordid  motives  a  few  had  come  to  believe  that  it  was 
nobler  to  stay  in  the  world  to  save  the  world,  than  to 
go  out  of  the  world  to  save  one's  own  soul. 

All  this  turned  to  the  profit  of  national  monarchy, 
and  Henry  vill.  boasted  that  as  far  as  England  was 
concerned,  he  was  King,  Emperor,  and  Pope  all 
rolled  into  one.  *  Imperial  *  was  one  of  his  favourite 
adjectives:  he  named  a  ship  the  Henry  Imperial \  his 
crown,  he  said,  was  an  imperial  crown,  and  England 
an  imperial  realm.     Parliament  and  Convocation  took 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFOR]SlA.Tj:(?N/  99  ;• 

up  the  strain :  they  meant  that  E^i^lgnbcJ  hfeii}*;!^; ; 
emancipated  itself  from  the  Pope  to  throw  itself  mtb*' • 
the  arms  of  that  other  medieval  monarchy,  the  Empire; 
and  they  zealously  propagated  a  legend  that  Con- 
stantine  the  Great  had  really  granted  England  imperial 
independence,  while  his  alleged  donation  to  the  Papacy 
was  forged.  The  legislative  and  jurisdictional  authority 
of  the  Pope  had  been  transferred  to  the  King :  but  it 
was  not  true  to  say  that  Henry  viii.  was  Pope  in 
England.  His  power  was  a  potestas  jurisdictionis ^ 
not  a  potestas  ordinis :  he  did  not  claim  the  spiritual 
functions  of  the  Pope,  or  even  those  of  a  bishop  or  a 
priest.  The  administration  of  the  Sacrament,  baptiz- 
ing, confirming,  marrying,  and  burying  were  all  left 
to  the  clergy :  and  '  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church ' 
was  an  offensive  phrase,  which  conveyed  to  many 
more  than  Henry  thought  of  claiming.  The  title 
*  Supreme  Governor,'  which  Elizabeth  preferred,  in- 
cluded everything  that  Henry  wanted.  He  claimed 
control  of  the  machine,  but  he  did  not  pretend  to 
supply  the  motive  power.  He  insisted  upon  selecting 
the  channels  through  which  spiritual  blessings  flowed, 
but  he  did  not  imagine  that  he  was  the  channel,  nor 
the  source  from  which  they  flowed.  He  was  willing, 
to  use  his  own  words,  to  leave  to  the  clergy  control 
of  men's  souls,  provided  the  State  had  control  of  their 
bodies. 

But  within  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction 
and  legislation  he  was  supreme.  The  papal  power 
had  in  these  matters  been  absolute  ;  every  sort  of 
check  had  been  repudiated ;  the  papal  will  was  law  ; 


100.  /  rFACtORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

'hab^ro^nniai 'jura  in  scrinio  suOy  as  Clement  VII.  said  of 
himself!  This  had  all  been  transferred  to  Henry  VIII., 
with  the  somewhat  bizarre  result  that  he  was  at  one 
and  the  same  time  an  absolute  monarch  in  the  Church 
and  a  constitutional  monarch  in  the  State.  He  could 
reform  the  Church  by  injunctions,  when  he  could  not 
reform  the  State  by  proclamations.  He  could  in 
person  condemn  for  heresy,  when  he  could  not  for 
murder  or  treason.  This  ambiguous  position  led  to 
some  confusion  in  the  Stuart  times.  Those  monarchs 
arrogated  the  same  absolutism  in  the  State  that  they 
legally  possessed  in  the  Church  ;  and  the  dispensing 
and  suspending  powers,  which  they  constitutionally 
exercised  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere,  they  extended 
to  the  temporal  sphere.  On  the  other  hand.  Parlia- 
ment sought  to  apply  the  constitutional  limits  which 
bounded  the  royal  authority  in  the  State  to  the  royal 
authority  in  the  Church  ;  and  there  you  have  one  of 
the  underlying  sources  of  antagonism  between  King 
and  Parliament  in  the  seventeenth  century — an  an- 
tagonism which  is  more  ecclesiastical  than  political, 
and  arose  inevitably  from  the  fact  that  the  Tudor 
settlement  of  religion  was  a  compromise  tenable  only 
so  long  as  the  Tudor  dictatorship  remained  in  force. 

The  supremacy  over  the  Church  was  in  fact  a  royal 
and  not  a  Parliamentary  supremacy.  Elizabeth  quar- 
relled with  every  one  of  her  Parliaments  on  this 
question.  The  sovereign  was,  in  her  opinion,  supreme 
over  both  spheres,  ecclesiastical  and  temporal ;  but 
Parliament  had  only  to  do  with  the  temporal  sphere : 
Convocation  was  co-ordinate  with,  and  not  subordinate 


HENRY  VIIL  AND  THE  REFORMAajlOK^ioi    y.  ;; 


to  it.  In  this  she  was  more  ecclesiastical^  {ij&Xdqd^ 
than  Henry  VIII. ;  or  perhaps  it  would  be  truer 'to'' 
say  that  she  dreaded  Parliament  more.  She  had 
little  to  fear  from  Convocation ;  and  she  supported  it, 
not  because  she  loved  it  more,  but  because  she  loved 
Parliament  less.  This  was  the  germ  of  the  Stuart 
policy :  Parliament  was  the  aggressor,  it  threatened 
both  King  and  Church,  and  both  formed  a  defensive 
alliance  against  it.  The  victory  of  the  State  over  the 
Church  in  Henry's  reign  had  been  a  personal  victory 
for  the  King ;  but  Parliament  soon  claimed  to  be  a 
better  representative  of  the  State  than  the  King.  It 
wanted  to  control  all  the  royal  prerogative ;  it  suc- 
ceeded so  far  as  temporal  matters  were  concerned,  but 
was  not  so  successful  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere.  The 
royal  supremacy  fell  into  abeyance  between  Parliament 
and  the  Church :  and  the  result  has  been  ecclesiastical 
anarchy  from  which  an  escape  has  not  yet  been  found. 
There  is  one  other  remark  to  be  made  about  the 
method  by  which  the  Reformation  was  established  in 
England.  It  was  the  work  of  a  government  and  not 
of  a  prophet.  There  was  no  Luther  or  Calvin  in 
England,  because  the  strong  monarchy  did  no^  favour 
individual  enterprise  as  did  the  political  anarchy  of 
Germany  and  Switzerland.  The  result  was  perhaps 
less  truth,  but  greater  order.  To  Luther  or  Calvin 
truth  could  be  the  first  and  almost  the  only  considera- 
tion. A  government  has  to  consider  not  merely  what 
is  truth,  but  whether  truth  can  be  translated  into 
action  and  imposed  on  a  people.  This  restrained 
the  exuberance  of  theological   debate,  and   England 


••  .»•»*. 


I02.  .  JFAGT^ORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

•qamef '.  thrpugh,  ihe  Reformation  without  a  religious 
civil  war.  It  also  came  without  a  clear-cut  system  of 
theology;  the  formularies  of  the  English  Church  are 
composite  in  origin  and  represent  the  working  of 
various  minds :  they  are  like  the  policy  of  a  cabinet, 
full  of  compromise,  not  entirely  satisfactory  to  any 
one,  but  tolerable  to  many.  A  government  always 
tries  to  strike  an  average ;  the  Tudors  did  so  in  the 
Church  of  England  ;  but  an  average  is  anathema  to 
all  extremes. 

From  this  it  follows  that  the  Church  of  England  has 
never  been  really  Lutheran,  Zwinglian,  or  Calvinistic. 
After  the  first  breach  with  Rome  there  was  a  natural 
tendency  towards  Lutheranism ;  Cranmer  passed 
through  a  Lutheran  phase,  and  between  1536  and 
1538  an  attempt  at  accommodation  between  the 
Lutheran  and  Anglican  churches  was  made.  But 
Henry  himself  categorically  refused  to  concede  the 
three  demands  made  by  Lutheran  envoys  to  England, 
and  the  Six  Articles  reaffirmed  England's  allegiance 
to  Catholicism.  Political  changes  in  1540  made  an 
alliance  with  the  Lutheran  princes  unnecessary: 
Cromwell  fell,  and  Anne  of  Cleves  was  divorced. 
The  Catholic  reaction  was  only  temporary,  but  the 
next  wave  of  Protestantism  was  Zwinglian  rather 
than  Lutheran  ;  and  Henry  Bullinger,  Zwingli's  suc- 
cessor at  Zurich,  was  the  oracle  of  the  advanced 
reformers  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  The  Calvinistic 
phase,  although  it  is  often  antedated,  came  later,  not 
till  Elizabeth's  reign  when  the  Marian  exiles  had 
returned  from  Geneva.     Its  success  in  Scotland  made 


HENRY  VIII.  AND  THE  REFORMATION    103 

it  more  formidable  than  Lutheranism,-cr  ^wiii^lianlsm 
had  ever  been,  and  in  the  seventeenth,  fg.eptui»yj>  it' 
seemed  that  the  Church  might  become  Calvinistic. 
But  by  that  time  the  Anglican  system  had  taken 
root  and  fortified  itself  in  the  national  affection.  The 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  the  Anglican  theology  of 
Hooker  and  the  Caroline  divines,  were  antidotes 
against  Puritanism ;  and  later  on  the  development 
of  the  secular  and  latitudinarian  spirit  produced  an 
atmosphere  uncongenial  to  the  severity  of  Calvinism. 
Wycliffe,  indeed,  is  more  representative  of  English 
theology  than  any  foreign  divine ;  he  anticipated 
practically  all  the  Protestantism  that  the  English 
Church  adopted. in  the  sixteenth  century.  Possibly 
he  anticipated  more  ;  he  was  not  a  bishop,  and  he 
did  not  breathe  a  spirit  of  compromise.  He  was  per- 
haps more  of  a  Puritan  than  an  Anglican ;  and  he 
pointed  to  heights  or  depths  to  which  the  Established 
Church  never  rose  or  fell.  But  the  path  which  he 
illumined  was  the  path  which  England  took,  however 
much  she  may  have  stumbled  on  the  way  and  however 
far  she  may  have  stopped  short  of  his  ideal ;  and  the 
Morning  Star  of  the  Reformation  in  England  was  also 
its  guiding  light. 


104       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


PARLIAMENT 

The  circumstances  of  which  we  have  been  speaking 
in  connection  with  the  New  Monarchy  were  anything 
but  favourable  to  the  development  of  Parliamentary 
independence  and  prestige.  Indeed,  everywhere  but 
in  England  Parliamentary  institutions  almost  disap- 
peared. The  States-General  met  for  the  last  time  in 
France  before  the  revolution  in  1614  ;  the  Cortes  of  the 
Spanish  Peninsula  grew  insignificant.  In  Germany 
the  Imperial  Diet  and  the  provincial  assemblies 
lost  much  of  their  influence,  and  ceased  to  control  the 
territorial  princes.  The  same  tendencies  threatened 
the  future  of  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons. 
Parliament  in  the  sixteenth  century  seemed  to  meet 
only  to  register  the  monarch's  decrees  and  to  clothe 
with  a  legal  cloak  the  naked  despotism  of  his  acts. 
It  is  commonly  asserted  that  they  were  packed  with 
royal  nominees  and  dragooned  by  royal  commands. 
How  far  this  picture  is  true  we  must  now  inquire. 

Of  the  weakness  of  Parliament  at  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century  there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt. 
That  was  the  natural  result  of  the  failure  of  Parliament 
under  the  Lancastrians  to  secure  respect  for  law  and 
order  ;  and  this  general  effect  was  supplemented  by 
particular  causes.     The  House  of  Lords  was  enfeebled 


PARLIAMENT  105 

through  the  slaughter  of  nobles  on  the  battlefields  of 
the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  through  their  proscription 
by  the  victor  in  times  of  peace.  The  process  of 
attainder  not  merely  disposed  of  the  individual  peer, 
but  debarred  his  descendants  from  office  and  honour. 
So  the  old  lines  died  out :  new  creations  were  rare,  and 
the  creatures  were  subservient.  It  was  not  till  the 
reign  of  Charles  I.  that  the  peers  began  to  show  any 
signs  of  independence ;  and  then  they  were  goaded 
into  opposition,  not  by  public  wrongs,  but  by  personal 
jealousy  of  the  upstart  Duke  of  Buckingham.  The 
spiritual  lords  were  somnolent,  and  the  lassitude  of  the 
Church  was  the  prelude  to  its  fall.  The  reason  was 
that  it  had  linked  its  fortunes  with  those  of  the 
nobility :  bishops  and  abbots  were  generally  younger 
sons  of  peers  upon  whom  they  depended  for  political 
support ;  and  when  the  secular  peerage  committed 
political  suicide  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  the  spiritual 
peers  were  left  powerless  before  the  throne. 

The  House  of  Commons  was  never  quite  so  destitute 
of  spirit,  though  it  reached  low-water  mark  in  the  later 
years  of  Henry  VII.  Various  acts  of  its  own  contri- 
buted to  its  decline.  By  an  Act  of  1430  the  county 
franchise  had  been  limited  to  the  forty-shilling  free- 
holders, and  forty  shillings  in  those  days  was  equiva- 
lent to  at  least  forty  pounds  to-day  ;  as  the  leaseholders 
and  copyholders  were  excluded  from  the  vote,  it  is 
clear  that  the  county  electors  were  reduced  to  a  narrow 
oligarchy,  and  their  representatives  could  speak  for 
a  small  fraction  only  of  the  nation.  In  the  boroughs 
there  was  every  variety  of  qualification  for  the  fran- 


io6      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

chise  ;  but  the  general  tendency  in  the  fifteenth  century 
was  to  restrict  it  to  the  governing  body  of  the  borough, 
and  to  make  that  governing  body  less  and  less  depen- 
dent on  the  populace.  Another  Act  of  the  Lancastrian 
period  had  made  residence  a  condition  for  election,  so 
that  only  local  men  could  be  chosen.  These  local  men, 
like  their  constituencies,  had  only  a  local  conscious- 
ness ;  they  were  not  really  interested  in  national 
affairs,  and  they  resented  being  called  away  from  their 
homes  and  their  businesses  to  attend  at  Westminster  to 
matters  with  which  they  honestly  felt  incompetent  to 
deal.  They  tried  to  comfort  themselves  with  their 
wages,  and  to  make  something  out  of  their  necessities 
by  executing  commissions  in  London  for  their  local 
friends.  Neither  proved  very  satisfactory  ;  a  member 
of  the  Reformation  Parliament  complained  that  his 
residence  in  London  cost  him  far  more  than  his  wages, 
and  the  King  was  pestered  with  petitions  from 
members  for  licence  to  go  home  before  the  session 
ended.  As  late  as  Elizabeth's  reign  the  Lord 
Chancellor  apologised  to  Parliament  for  its  summons  as 
being  a  necessary  evil.  Violent  methods  had  some- 
times to  be  employed  to  bring  members  up  to  West- 
minster ;  and  I  have  already  mentioned  the  instance  in 
which  the  two  elected  members  for  Oxfordshire  fled  the 
country  to  escape  the  burden.  There  were  instances  in 
which  the  Recorder  of  a  borough  was  bound,  as  part  of 
his  duties,  to  represent  the  borough  in  Parliament. 

The  constituencies,  too,  felt  Parliamentary  represent- 
ation to  be  a  burden  rather  than  a  privilege,  and  many 
suffered  it  to  lapse.     They  objected  to  finding  wages 


PARLIAMENT  107 

for  their  members,  and  in  1539  a  friend  of  Cromwell's 
induced  one  or  more  constituencies  to  return  his 
nominees  by  guaranteeing  that  they  should  get  their 
representation  done  for  nothing.  This  frame  of  mind 
rendered  it  easy  for  county  magnates  to  secure  seats 
for  their  friends.  An  aspiring  politician  in  Elizabeth's 
reign  writes  to  the  Earl  of  Rutland  saying  that  he 
desires  for  his  learning's  sake  to  be  a  member  of 
Parliament,  and  asking  if  the  Earl  has  a  seat  to  spare. 
The  Duke  of  Norfolk  could  return  ten  members  in 
Sussex  alone.  The  Bishop  of  Winchester  was  in  the 
habit  of  nominating  various  burgesses  in  his  bishopric. 
These  were  abuses  consequent  on  the  lack  of  patri- 
otism and  national  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the 
constituencies.  When  Henry  Vlll.  sent  a  peremptory 
order  to  a  certain  knight  to  represent  Cumberland  in 
Parliament,  it  was  not  because  he  wanted  to  pack 
Parliament,  but  because  nothing  short  of  a  royal 
command  addressed  to  an  individual  could  produce  a 
representative  at  all  from  so  distant  a  constituency  ;  the 
gentlemen  of  that  district  found  Border  raids  far  more 
exciting  than  Parliamentary  oratory.  Parliamentary 
representation  was  an  irksome  duty;  men  could  no 
more  resign  a  seat  in  Parliament  than  they  can  to-day 
resign  their  obligation  to  serve  on  juries  or  pay 
rates  and  taxes.  That  prohibition  remains  in  form  to- 
day, though  the  spirit  has  departed.  You  have  all 
heard  of  the  Chiltern  Hundreds,  for  which  M.P.'s 
apply  when  they  want  to  resign  their  seats  ;  the  point 
is  that  that  stewardship  is  an  office  of  profit  under  the 
Crown,  the  acceptance  of  which  by  an  Act  of  William 


io8      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

III.  vacates  a  member's  seat ;  and  it  is  only  by  this 
cumbersome,  roundabout  method  that  a  member  can 
divest  himself  of  his  Parliamentary  duties.  He  cannot 
resign  in  a  straightforward  way.  The  same  incapacity 
to  resign  then  applied  to  ministers  of  state,  and  the 
fact  must  be  borne  in  mind  when  criticising  those  Tudor 
officials  who  held  office  successively  amid  all  the 
changes  of  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI.,  Mary,  and 
Elizabeth.  Resignation  was  regarded  as  an  almost 
cowardly  dereliction  of  duty  to  the  State ;  a  member 
could  not  in  fact  resign,  unless  the  King  gave  him 
leave ;  and  again  the  form  has  remained  to  this  day. 
The  King  must  accept  a  resignation  before  it  can  be- 
come effectual ;  if  he  refused,  the  minister  would  have 
to  remain  in  office.  Practically  he  never  does  refuse 
now,  but  he  often  did  so  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

Such  were  the  Parliamentary  conditions  when  the 
Tudors  ascended  the  throne  :  a  great  deal  of  Parlia- 
mentary lassitude,  and  indifference  to  Parliamentary 
questions  on  the  part  of  the  nation  at  large,  a  marked 
tendency  on  the  part  of  many  constituencies  to  let 
slide  their  Parliamentary  representation,  both  on 
account  of  the  expense  and  because  they  thought  that 
the  monarchy  would  look  after  their  interests  as 
carefully  and  as  effectively  as  their  members ;  and  an 
extreme  reluctance  on  the  part  of  possible  candidates 
to  undertake  the  irksome  burden  of  Parliamentary 
duties.  A  realisation  of  these  conditions  will,  I  think, 
tend  to  modify  our  view  of  the  action  of  the  Tudors 
with  regard  to  Parliament.  We  hear  so  much  of 
the  despotism  of  the  Tudors  and  the  tyranny  of  Henry 


PARLIAMENT  109 

VIII.,  and  we  apply  the  same  phrases  so  constantly  to 
the  government  of  the  Stuarts,  that  almost  insensibly 
we  are  led  to  conceive  of  the  two  kinds  of  rule  as  being 
the  same  in  character,  and  to  attribute  to  the  Tudors 
the  same  antipathy  to  Parliament,  the  same  desire  to 
dispense  with  it,  that  we  find  in  all  the  Stuarts.  That 
Parliament  survived  in  the  sixteenth  century  we  think 
must  have  been  in  spite  of,  and  not  because  of,  the 
Tudors ;  and,  considering  the  circumstances  of  the 
time,  we  are  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  explain  how  it  was 
that  Parliament  survived  at  all.  In  fact  Parliament 
was  in  abeyance  for  considerable  periods,  for  instance 
during  the  latter  years  of  Henry  VII.'s  reign  and 
during  Wolsey's  domination  ;  and  had  the  Tudors  as 
a  whole  been  as  averse  to  Parliament  as  those  two 
statesmen,  it  almost  seems  as  though  the  Parliamentary 
system  might  have  suffered  serious,  and  perhaps 
irreparable,  damage.  But  we  shall  find  that  Henry 
VIII.  especially  was  anything  but  hostile  to  his  Parlia- 
ments ;  that  under  him  the  Parliamentary  system  is 
extended  and  developed  ;  that  Parliamentary  privileges 
are  asserted  and  maintained  ;  and  that  Parliament  is 
educated  up  to  a  national  sense  of  duty.  Parliament 
in  fact  owes  much  more  to  the  Tudor  monarchy  than  a 
democratic  age  is  willing  to  admit ;  it  was  not  so 
exclusively  its  own  creation  as  parliamentarians  would 
believe.  Now  we  must  not  believe  that  this  develop- 
ment of  Parliament  was  due  to  any  desire  on  Henry's 
part  to  limit  the  royal  prerogative  or  to  any  royal 
belief  in  popular  self-government.  It  was  due  to  his 
desire  to  be  great  himself,  and  to  his  perception  of  the 


no      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

facts  that  a  king  at  issue  with  his  people  can  never  be 
really  great  or  strong,  and  that  a  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand  ;  he  sought  to  make  Parliament  not 
the  rival,  still  less  the  master,  but  the  foundation,  of  the 
royal  authority. 

In  the  clearness  with  which  he  perceived  this  Henry 
VIII.  stands  alone  among  the  Tudors.  Part  of  the 
credit  may  be  due  to  Thomas  Cromwell,  but  not  all ; 
for  Thomas  Cromwell  would  have  gone  farther  in  the 
direction  of  destroying  Parliament  than  ever  Henry 
dreamt  of  doing.  The  adoption  of  this  policy  may 
also  have  been  due  in  part  to  Henry's  realisation  of 
the  extent  to  which  his  wishes  and  those  of  Parliament 
coincided.  He  might  have  been  as  little  sympathetic 
to  Parliament  as  Elizabeth  was,  had  he  discovered 
the  same  antagonism  in  it  and  the  same  desire  to 
dictate  to  the  Crown.  However  that  may  be,  there 
was  considerable  variation  in  the  Tudor  attitude 
towards  Parliament ;  and  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  little 
careful  in  our  dates,  or  we  shall  fall  into  one  of  those 
generalisations  which  Bishop  Stubbs  says  are  ipso  facto 
false.  A  royal  parvenu  like  Henry  VII.  felt  at  first 
the  need  of  Parliamentary  countenance  and  support ; 
he  represented,  moreover,  the  Lancastrian  cause ;  his 
ministers,  and  especially  Cardinal  Morton,  were  imbued 
with  the  Lancastrian  tradition,  and  the  Lancastrians 
had  always  depended  upon  Parliament.  Consequently, 
during  the  first  few  years  of  Henry  Vll.'s  reign 
Parliaments  are  frequent;  no  fewer  than  five  were 
summoned  between  1485  and  1497.  But  before  the  end 
of  the  century  Henry  had  established  himself  firmly 


PARLIAMENT  in 

on  the  throne ;  he  had  been  recognised  by  Europe ; 
all  the  serious  pretenders  had  been  removed  ;  there 
remained,  it  was  said,  not  a  drop  of  doubtful  royal 
blood  in  England.  Then  Cardinal  Morton  died ;  and 
between  1497  and  the  end  of  Henry's  reign  only  a 
single  Parliament  (i  504)  was  called.  It  was  the  longest 
interval  (1497- 1 504)  between  one  Parliament  and  an- 
other since  Parliament  had  existed,  and  was  perhaps 
the  most  critical  period  in  its  history. 

The  death  of  Henry  Vll.  seems,  however,  to  have 
revived  the  Lancastrian  tradition.  Henry  viii.,  who 
was  not  eighteen  at  his  accession,  left  the  government 
to  ministers  like  Archbishop  Warham  and  Bishop  Foxe, 
who  had  been  trained  in  Morton's  school.  Warham 
in  his  opening  address  as  Lord  Chancellor  to  the 
Parliament  of  1 5 1 1  dilated  on  the  necessity  of  frequent 
Parliamentary  sessions,  and  between  1509  and  15 15 
there  were  six  different  sessions — an  average  of  one  a 
year.  But  in  the  last  two  of  these  sessions  the  House 
of  Commons  began  to  voice  popular  opinion  against 
the  Church ;  an  act  was  passed  limiting  the  benefit  of 
clergy,  and  petitions  were  presented  complaining  of 
clerical  exactions.  Convocation  replied  by  attacking 
the  House  of  Commons ;  ecclesiastics  cried  out  that 
the  Church  was  in  danger.  A  Cardinal  now  controlled 
the  government  of  Henry  viii. ;  in  alarm  he  urged 
upon  the  King  the  speedy  dissolution  of  Parliament, 
and  for  fourteen  years  he  tried  to  govern  without  one. 
His  ecclesiastical  despotism  may  be  compared  with  the 
eleven  years'  tyranny  of  Charles  I. ;  in  both  cases  the 
absence  of  Parliamentary  grants  led  the  government  to 


112       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

adopt  arbitrary  expedients — loans  and  benevolences  by 
Wolsey,  ship-money  by  Charles  I. ;  and  in  both  cases, 
in  Pym's  words,  he  who  went  about  to  break  Par- 
liament was  himself  broken  by  Parliament. 

The  summons  of  the  Reformation  Parliament  in  1529 
was  the  natural  accompaniment  of  the  fall  of  Wolsey. 
Before  it  met,  every  intelligent  observer  knew  what  its 
programme  was  going  to  be :  churchmen  like  Wolsey 
and  Campeggio  called  it  the  utter  ruin  and  subversion 
of  the  Papacy  and  Church  in  England.  Ecclesiastics 
were  to  be  eliminated  from  the  government ;  clerical 
privileges  were  to  be  restrained  and  clerical  property 
to  be  reduced  ;  papal  jurisdiction  was  to  be  repudiated 
and  papal  taxation  to  be  removed.  On  this  platform 
King  and  Parliament  were  agreed;  and  from  1529  to 
Henry's  death  in  1547  rarely  a  year  passed  without  a 
Parliamentary  session.  The  Reformation  Parliament 
sat  from  1529  to  1536;  within  a  few  weeks  of  its  dis- 
solution another  was  summoned  in  June  1536.  A 
fresh  general  election  took  place  in  1539,  and  the  only 
year  between  then  and  Henry's  death  in  which  Par- 
liament did  not  meet  was  in  1541.  During  the  eighteen 
years  which  elapsed,  from  the  time  when  Henry  took 
the  government  into  his  own  hands  until  his  death, 
there  were  only  three  in  which  Parliament  did  not  sit 
This  example  was  followed  by  Henry's  immediate  suc- 
cessors ;  there  were  five  sessions  of  Parliament  in  the 
six  years  of  Edward's  reign,  and  five  in  the  five  years  of 
Mary.  Elizabeth  was  not  so  regular  with  her  Parlia- 
ments ;  her  marriage  and  religion  were  sources  of  peren- 
nial dispute  between  her  and  her  subjects.     The  alliaDce 


PARLIAMENT  113 

between  the  King  and  Parliament  against  the  Church 
had  been  transformed  into  one  of  Queen  and  Church 
against  Parliament ;  and  there  were  only  thirteen 
sessions  during  Elizabeth's  reign  of  forty-five  years. 
She  discourages  rather  than  encourages  Parliamentary 
liberties,  and  she  was  far  more  arbitrary  than  her  father 
had  been  in  her  treatment  of  members.  There  is  no 
precedent  in  Henry  Vlll.'s  reign  for  Elizabeth's  denial 
of  freedom  of  speech  and  imprisonment  of  Wentworth; 
her  regime  is  a  half-way  house  between  Henry  vill. 
and  Charles  I. ;  and  it  was  Henry  vill.  who  accus- 
tomed the  nation  to  that  idea  of  Parliamentary 
participation  in  government  which  proved  a  fatal 
stumbling-block  to  Charles. 

It  may  seem  paradoxical  to  represent  Henry  VIII. 
as  less  tyrannical  than  Elizabeth ;  but  he  certainly 
humoured  his  Parliaments  more ;  and,  indeed,  in  other 
respects  it  is  not  easy  to  justify  the  discrimination 
usually  made  between  the  two  monarchs  in  favour  of 
the  Queen.  She  was  certainly  not  more  truthful  than 
her  father ;  she  was  by  nature  quite  as  callous  ;  and  in 
policy  as  devoid  of  scruple.  Her  suppression  of  the 
Rebellion  of  the  Earls  in  1569  was  as  sanguinary  as 
Henry's  suppression  of  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  There 
was  as  much  justification  for  the  execution  of  Fisher 
and  Sir  Thomas  More  as  for  that  of  Father  Campion. 
Elizabeth  treated  Lady  Catherine  Grey  as  harshly  as 
Henry  treated  Catherine  of  Aragon  ;  and  the  fate  of 
Secretary  Davison  was  scarcely  more  fortunate  than 
that  of  Thomas  Cromwell,  though  Davison  had  given 
far  less  cause  for  offence.    There  were  fewer  executions, 

H 


114      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

but  there  was  also  less  necessity ;  for  Henry  Vlll.  had 
shown  once  for  all  that  no  miracles  would  happen  to 
protect  the  heads  of  disaffected  churchmen  ;  Cardinal 
Allen  escaped  the  fate  of  Cardinal  Fisher  by  keeping 
at  a  prudent  distance  .^and  the  only  rival  claimant  to 
the  throne  was  put  to  death.  The  title  *  good '  when 
applied  to  Queen  Bess  has  no  more  moral  meaning 
than  the  phrase  a  *  good '  actor.  It  means  that  she 
was  good  for  the  purpose  then  required ;  she  was 
an  adept  in  political  sharp  practice,  and  the  incar- 
nation of  national  prejudice.  But  she  did  not  under- 
stand Parliament  as  Henry  Vlll.  did.  She  took  to 
scolding  it,  and  on  one  occasion  through  the  mouth  of 
her  chancellor  she  denounced  members  as  *  audacious, 
arrogant  and  presumptuous,'  and  upbraided  them  for 
'  meddling  with  matters  neither  pertaining  to  them,  nor 
within  the  capacity  of  their  understanding.'  In  the 
latter  years  of  her  reign  there  is  little  to  choose  between 
her  relations  with  Parliament  and  James  i.'s,  except 
that  she  could  yield  on  occasion  with  grace,  while 
James  could  not ;  and  on  its  side  Parliament,  as  it  told 
James  I.,  forbore  much  in  consideration  of  the  Queen's 
age  and  sex :  it  did  not  feel  quite  equal  to  the  taming 
of  the  shrew. 

There  is  not,  however,  much  difference  of  opinion 
about  the  relations  between  Elizabeth  and  her  Parlia- 
ment. The  crux  of  the  question  occurs  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  reign  of  Henry  Vlli.  ;  and  the  common 
view  seems  to  place  insuperable  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
a  rational  explanation  of  the  history  of  that  epoch. 
The  usual  assumption  is  that  not  only  the  Church  but 


PARLIAMENT  115 

the  nation  as  a  whole  was  opposed  to  Henry's  policy, 
and  that  the  people  only  assented  to  it  through  Parlia- 
ment because  Parliamentary  elections  were  controlled 
by  the  Crown  ;  because  members  were  royal  nominees  ; 
because  freedom  of  speech  was  suppressed  inside  as 
well  as  outside  the  two  Houses  ;  and  because  Parliament 
itself  had  no  option  but  to  register  in  servile  submission 
the  royal  decrees.  Now  if  this  were  all  true,  it  would 
leave  unsolved  the  riddle  how  Henry  VIII.  was  able  to 
impose  his  will  on  the  nation  in  the  face  of  opposition 
from  every  quarter.  Some  people  seem  to  imagine 
that  when  you  have  said  he  was  an  absolute  despot,  you 
have  explained  everything :  you  have,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  explained  nothing :  absolutism  is  not  a  mathe- 
matical quantity  which  you  can  call  into  existence 
by  assuming  it.  The  question  is  how  he  came  to  be 
absolute,  if  he  was  absolute,  which  he  was  not ;  and  the 
only  answer  given  is  some  loose  and  ill-informed  talk 
about  the  servility  of  the  people  and  the  servility 
of  Parliament.  Now  the  English  people  are  not  by 
nature  servile ;  nor  were  they  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
If  you  reckon  up  the  kings  of  England  between  the 
Norman  Conquest  and  the  sixteenth  century  you  will 
find  that  half  of  them  were  temporarily  or  permanently 
deprived  of  power  by  popular  or  baronial  insurrections. 
Foreigners  in  the  sixteenth  century  used  scornfully 
to  contrast  the  turbulence  and  waywardness  ,of  the 
English  people  with  the  loyalty  and  obedience  of 
other  nations.  Indeed,  I  once  heard  an  exponent  of 
the  ordinary  view  urge  almost  in  the  same  breath  that 
the  insurrections  of  the  sixteenth  century  proved  the 


ii6      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

unpopularity  of  the  Tudors,  and  that  popular  acquies- 
cence proved  the  servility  of  the  people.  I  don't  think 
that  argument  will  hold  water,  nor  do  I  think  that 
the  evidence  bears  out  the  alleged  subservience  of 
Parliament. 

It  is  true  that  the  House  of  Lords  showed  little 
initiative  or  independence;  and  that  can  easily  be 
explained.  The  lay  peers  were  dependent  on  the 
Crown  ;  they  had  ceased  to  represent  the  military  forces 
or  the  wealth  of  the  realm  ;  even  its  landed  property 
was  no  longer  so  exclusively  in  their  hands.  They 
stood  on  no  independent  basis,  and  the  spiritual  peers 
who  formed  a  majority  of  the  House  were  first 
rendered  powerless  by  their  unpopularity  and  then 
reduced  almost  to  insignificance  by  the  disappearance 
of  the  abbots  from  the  House  of  Lords  at  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  monasteries.  No  similar  conditions  explain 
the  supposed  insignificance  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
It  is  obvious  enough  that  there  was  general  harmony 
between  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  King,  and  this 
is  sufficient  proof  for  those  who  imagine  that  Parlia- 
ment must  always  have  been  subservient  unless  it 
was  in  chronic  opposition  to  the  government.  But 
there  is  no  proof  that  this  accord  was  secured  by  the 
despotism  of  the  King  or  the  servility  of  Parliament ; 
that  contention  really  rests  on  the  utterly  unproved 
assumption  that  Parliament  and  people  were  opposed 
to  Henry's  policy.  If  you  want  to  establish  the  charge 
of  servility  you  must  prove  not  merely  that  Parliament 
did  what  Henry  wanted,  but  that  it  did  so  in  spite  of  its 
own  desires  and  principles. 


PARLIAMENT  117 

Now  the  means  by  which  Henry  Vlll.  is  supposed  to 
have  secured  this  subservience  are  these :  interference 
with  elections  ;  creation  of  new  boroughs  especially 
subject  to  royal  influence  ;  bribery  and  corruption  ;  and 
intimidation  of  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament.  With 
regard  to  the  first  it  is  only  possible  to  say  that 
neither  of  the  extreme  views  can  be  true.  It  is  clear 
that  there  was  occasionally  royal  interference  in 
elections,  but  it  is  equally  manifest  that  members  of 
Parliament  were  not  all  royal  nominees.  Where  the 
truth  lies  exactly  between  these  two  extremes  cannot 
be  determined  ;  because  such  a  solution  would  only  be 
possible  if  we  had  complete  and  impartial  accounts  of 
every  borough  and  shire  election  which  took  place  in 
England  during  the  Tudor  period.  Such  materials  do 
not  exist  ;  even  to-day  it  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  how 
much  bribery  takes  place  at  a  general  election,  and 
even  judges  have  been  criticised  for  the  point  at  which 
they  have  drawn  the  line  in  various  constituencies 
between  legitimate  and  illegitimate  expenditure.  The 
most  flagrant  instance  of  royal  dictation  occurred  at 
Canterbury  in  1536,  when  after  80  citizens  had  met 
and  elected  two  members,  a  command  came  down 
from  Cromwell  to  quash  the  election ;  whereupon  97 
citizens  met  and  chose  the  candidates  recommended  by 
the  Court.  But  this  is  the  most  extreme  case  known  ; 
and,  after  all,  the  exception  should  not  be  taken  as  a 
rule.  We  are  told  that  this  ounce  of  fact  is  worth  a 
pound  of  theory.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  an  ounce  of 
fact  is  worth  a  pound  of  theory,  but  unfortunately  the 
pounds  of  theory  are  not  all  on  one  side,  and  oun  ces  of 


ii8      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

fact  will  stray  from  one  scale  of  the  balance  into  the 
other.  There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  deciding 
between  ounces  of  fact  and  pounds  of  theory,  but  we 
have  to  decide  between  so  many  ounces  of  fact  and 
pounds  of  theory  in  the  one  scale,  and  so  many  ounces 
of  fact  and  pounds  of  theory  in  the  other.  In  1529,  for 
instance,  we  have  a  pretty  full  contemporary  account  of 
the  election  for  the  city  of  London  :  as  was  the  custom, 
one  member  was  chosen  by  the  Lord  Mayor  and 
aldermen,  and  one  by  the  common  Council ;  there  is  no 
hint  whatever  of  royal  interference.  We  have  also  an 
account  of  a  disputed  election  in  Shropshire  where  the 
rival  parties  canvass  and  cabal  in  the  most  approved 
and  modern  fashion  ;  but  again  there  is  no  hint  of 
royal  dictation.  A  few  months  after  Henry's  death 
there  was  an  election  in  Kent ;  the  Council  recom- 
mended Sir  John  Baker,  who  had  been  Speaker  of  the 
previous  Parliament,  and  was  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.  The  electors  resented  this  attempt  at 
dictation  ;  the  Council  thereupon  apologised,  and  said 
that  nothing  was  further  from  their  thoughts  than  to 
rob  the  constituency  of  its  accustomed  freedom  of 
election  ;  but  they  would  take  it  kindly  if  Sir  John 
Baker  found  favour  in  the  electors'  eyes.  But  the 
electors  refused  to  be  mollified,  and  Sir  John,  despite 
the  Council's  influence,  had  to  find  a  seat  elsewhere. 
Testimony  to  the  same  effect  is  given  by  a  contem- 
porary pamphlet  called  The  Complaynt  of  Roderick  Mors^ 
which  upbraids  the  electors  for  the  kind  of  representa- 
tives they  chose  ;  they  preferred,  laments  this  Radical, 
'  such   as  be  rich  or  bear  some  office  in  the  country, 


PARLIAMENT  119 

often  boasters  and  braggers  ;  be  he  never  so  very  a  fool, 
drunkard,  extortioner,  never   so   covetous   and   crafty 
a  person,  yet  if  he  be  rich,  bear  any  office,  if  he  be  a 
jolly  cracker  and  bragger  in  the  country,  he  must  needs 
be  a  burgess  of  Parliament.     Alas  !  how  can  any  such 
study   or  give  any  godly  counsel  for   the   Common- 
wealth?'      Here    the    whole     responsibility    for    the 
character  of  members  of  Parliament  is  thrown  on  the 
constituencies,   and  not   upon   the  alleged  practice  of 
royal   nomination.     The   influence  is  not  that  of  the 
King  or  the  Court,  but  the  corrupt  influence  of  wealth. 
And   we   find   precisely  the  same  complaint  made  in 
Cecil's  papers  in  1559.     'Merchants,'  it  is  said, 'have 
grown  so  cunning  in  the  task  of  corrupting,  and  found 
it   so   sweet  that   since  the  first  year  of  Henry  VIII. 
there  never  could  be  won  any  good  law  or  order  which 
touched  their  liberty  or  estate ;    but   they  stayed    it, 
either  in  the  Commons  or  higher  house  of  Parliament,  or 
else  by  the  Prince  himself,  with  either  h  roy  non  veut  or 
le   roy  s'avisera ;    and   if  they  get   the   Prince  to  be 
advised  they  give  him  leave  to  forget  it  altogether.'     It 
is  not  easy  to  harmonise  this  picture  drawn  by  a  con- 
temporary hand  with  the  fancy  modern  sketches  of  a 
Parliament  simply  registering  royal  edicts. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  some  exceptional 
constituencies  in  which  royal  nomination  was  the 
rule ;  at  Calais,  for  instance,  the  King  nominated  one 
member,  the  other  was  elected,  and  the  same  custom 
appears  to  have  been  observed  in  royal  boroughs. 
These  were  probably  few  in  number;  and  the  great 
mass  of  nominees  returned   to   Parliament  were   the 


I20       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

nominees  of  great  magnates  like  the  Duke  of  Norfolk 
or  the  Bishop  of  Winchester.  Smaller  lords  sometimes 
enjoyed  this  privilege :  the  Copley  family,  who  were 
lords  of  the  manor  of  Gatton,  returned  the  member 
for  that  borough,  because,  we  are  told,  'there  are  no 
burgesses  there.' 

But  of  any  general  or  systematic  attempt  to  pack 
the  Parliament  of  1529  there  is  no  evidence;  and, 
considering  the  thousands  of  letters  and  state  papers 
surviving  from  that  period,  the  argument  from  silence 
is  particularly  strong.  There  is  one  document  which 
has  been  taken  to  prove  the  packing  of  this  Parlia- 
ment, and  that  is  a  well-known  letter  to  Cromwell 
concerning  his  election  to  Parliament,  and  his  under- 
taking to  conform  to  the  King's  wishes  therein.  If  he 
would  give  this  undertaking,  he  was  to  be  nominated 
for  Oxford  or  one  of  the  boroughs  in  Hampshire. 
The  letter  has  been  misunderstood,  because  Crom- 
well was  seeking  to  enter  the  King's  service,  and  his 
engagement  was  to  be  taken  not  as  a  member  of  Par- 
liament, but  as  servant  to  the  King.  The  presence  of 
such  in  Parliament  undoubtedly  enabled  the  govern- 
ment to  influence  Parliament,  but  so  does  the  presence 
of  ministers  to-day,  and  it  would  be  a  poor  sort  of 
government  which  had  no  such  means  of  exercising 
influence.  Perhaps,  too,  it  is  worth  noting  that  Crom- 
well was  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  elected  for  any  of 
the  constituencies  suggested  in  this  letter ;  he  actually 
sat  for  Taunton.  More  interference  is  traceable  in  the 
general  election  of  1539,  when  Cromwell  endeavoured 
to  secure  the  election  of  personal  adherents  in  some 


PARLIAMENT  121 

constituencies  ;  but  the  futility  of  his  efforts  is  apparent 
from  the  fact  that  this  very  Parliament  passed  the 
bill  of  attainder  against  him  without  a  dissentient 
voice.  Equally  futile  was  the  one  real  attempt  made 
in  the  sixteenth  century  to  secure  a  packed  Parlia- 
ment. This  was  in  March  1553,  when  Northumber- 
land's unpopularity  had  driven  him  to  his  wits'  end 
to  find  means  for  carrying  on  the  government.  That 
the  method  was  unusual  is  obvious  from  a  letter 
from  Renard,  the  Spanish  ambassador,  to  Charles  v., 
when  he  asks  in  August  1553  whether  Charles  would 
advise  Mary  to  summon  a  general  Parliament  or  an 
assembly  of  notables  after  the  fashion  introduced  by 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland.  Even  this  assembly 
proved  refractory,  and  Northumberland's  attempt  and 
those  of  James  i.  and  Charles  I.  all  go  to  prove  the 
inadequacy  of  the  packing  of  Parliament  as  a  method 
of  government.  The  mere  fact  of  the  attempt  being 
made  is  evidence  of  a  conscious  antagonism  between 
King  and  people  which  only  existed  in  Tudor  times 
under  Northumberland  and  Mary ;  in  each  case  it  was 
proof,  on  the  part  of  the  government,  of  failure,  and  an 
omen  for  the  speedy  reversal  of  its  policy. 

The  case  with  regard  to  the  creation  of  boroughs 
breaks  down  even  more  completely,  at  any  rate  as  far 
as  Henry  VIII.  is  concerned;  for  recently  published 
Parliamentary  records  show  that  only  some  half  a 
dozen  new  boroughs  were  created  before  Northumber- 
land's regime ;  and  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that 
a  single  one  of  these  creations  was  due  to  sinister 
motives  rather  than  to  Henry's  policy  of  extending 


122       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

the  Parliamentary  system  by  granting  representation 
to  new  centres  of  population,  and  by  bringing  within 
it  Wales,  Cheshire,  and  Calais.  The  creation  by 
Northumberland  of  eleven  new  boroughs  in  Cornwall, 
where  Crown  influence  is  said  to  have  been  predomi- 
nant, does  look  suspicious ;  and  Mary's  and  Elizabeth's 
large  additions  to  the  number  may  perhaps  be  ascribed 
to  sinister  motives ;  but  I  doubt  it.  The  Journals  of 
Parliament,  which  was  usually  vocal  enough  on  its 
privileges,  contain  no  hint  of  resentment  at  these 
alleged  attempts  to  pack  it ;  and  it  is  questionable 
whether  the  movement  originated  with  the  govern- 
ment at  all.  At  any  rate,  we  find  in  Elizabeth's  reign 
that  a  committee  was  appointed  by  the  House  of 
Commons  to  consider  the  claims  of  various  boroughs 
which  had  allowed  their  representation  to  lapse  and 
now  wanted  to  recover  it ;  that  among  these  boroughs 
were  Tregony,  St.  Germains,  and  St.  Mawes  in  Corn- 
wall, which  are  usually  supposed  to  have  been  created 
by  royal  command  to  suit  the  royal  convenience ;  that 
the  member  for  Tregony,  instead  of  being  a  minion 
of  the  government,  was  Peter  Wentworth,  one  of  the 
most  courageous  and  assertive  champions  of  Parlia- 
mentary liberty  who  ever  opposed  the  Crown  or  suffered 
in  the  Tower ;  and  that  his  brother  Paul,  who  was 
scarcely  less  distinguished  as  a  Parliamentary  critic  of 
the  Crown,  sat  for  Liskeard,  another  Cornish  borough. 
If  these  Cornish  boroughs  were  really  created  in  order 
to  make  the  House  of  Commons  subservient,  the 
Crown  was  indeed  hoist  with  its  own  petard  ;  it  rather 
looks  as  though  these  Cornish  boroughs,  with  their  zest 


PARLIAMENT  123 

for  Protestantism  and  the  sea,  were  nurseries  of  political 
independence  rather  than  of  political  subservience. 

Of  bribery  employed  by  the  Crown  to  corrupt 
Parliament  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  in  Tudor  times, 
except  in  so  far  as  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries 
was  a  gigantic  bribe.  Henry  VIII.  was  too  lordly, 
Elizabeth  too  parsimonious,  to  lavish  bribes  on  in- 
dividual members  of  Parliament.  There  was  of  course 
that  subtle  form  of  influence  by  which  hope  of  pro- 
motion induces  members  to  prophesy  smooth  things 
to  those  who  can  promote.  '  Preferment,'  runs  a  verse 
from  Scripture,  'cometh  neither  from  the  East,  nor 
from  the  West,  nor  from  the  South,'  and  an  ambitious 
divine  in  the  reign  of  George  III.  selected  this  as  his 
text  when  preaching  before  Lord  North,  then  Prime 
Minister.  So  long  as  ambition  remains  a  human 
motive,  men  will  always  flatter  the  powers  that  be; 
and  one  is  rather  surprised  at  the  amount  of  indepen- 
dence shown  even  by  the  Privy  Councillors  in  the 
Parliaments  of  Elizabeth.  They  did  not  by  any  means 
merge  their  character  as  members  in  their  character 
as  ministers ;  and  were  habitually  associated  with  their 
fellow-members  in  urging  upon  the  Queen  advice  which 
they  knew  would  be  distasteful  to  her.  The  Tudors, 
even  Elizabeth,  always  knew,  while  the  Stuarts  did 
not,  how  to  distinguish  between  courtiers  and  coun- 
cillors; flattery  was  not  a  road  to  the  Council,  however 
much  it  might  pave  the  way  to  the  Court. 

Lastly,  we  come  to  the  idea  that  Parliament  ap- 
proved of  the  measures  of  Henry  Vlll.  solely  because 
it  had  no  option  in  the  matter,  because,  whatever  its 


124      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

own  views  may  have  been,  it  could  not  venture  to 
express  disagreement  with  the  King  by  voice  or  by 
vote.  Against  that  contention  I  can  only  say  that 
no  one  has  yet  produced  a  single  instance  in  which 
Henry  vili.  punished  or  attempted  to  punish  a  member 
of  Parliament  for  any  vote  or  speech  within  the  walls 
of  Parliament.  Bishop  Gardiner,  writing  to  Protector 
Somerset  in  1547,  categorically  states  that  there  was 
complete  freedom  of  speech  in  Parliament  in  Henry's 
reign,  and  apologises  for  the  length  of  his  letter  by 
comparing  himself  with  members  of  the  Lower  House 
who  thought  that,  once  on  their  legs,  they  had  a  right 
to  go  on  as  long  as  they  liked.  The  principle  was 
formally  admitted  in  15 12  in  Strode's  case  ;  and  about 
the  same  time  we  find  Convocation  enviously  petition- 
ing for  the  same  freedom  of  speech  as  was  enjoyed  by 
Parliament.  Nor  was  this  freedom  accorded  because 
members  always  spoke  smooth  things.  In  the  Refor- 
mation Parliament  two  members  urged  Henry  to  take 
back  Catherine  of  Aragon  as  his  wife  and  thus  avoid 
the  necessity  for  the  military  and  naval  expenditure 
for  which  he  was  seeking  a  Parliamentary  vote.  Others 
hotly  asserted  that  if  Henry  taxed  his  people  more  he 
would  meet  with  the  fate  of  Richard  III. ;  plain  speak- 
ing could  not  further  go,  but  impunity  accompanied  it. 
So,  too,  the  House  absolutely  refused  to  pass  the  bill 
for  the  pardon  of  the  clergy  unless  the  laity  were 
also  included.  Henry  grumbled  a  bit,  and  said  he 
could  if  he  liked  pardon  the  clergy  without  Parlia- 
mentary sanction,  which  was  true;  but  he  thought  it 
wiser  in  the  end  to  yield.     This  was  not  a  solitary 


PARLIAMENT  125 

instance  ;  many  bills  in  Henry's  reign  were  rejected  or 
amended  by  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  idea 
that  Parliament  did  nothing  but  register  royal  edicts 
cannot  stand  for  a  moment  after  an  examination  of  the 
Parliamentary  proceedings  of  the  reign.  Similar  in- 
stances might  be  quoted  from  the  reigns  of  Edward  VI., 
Mary,  and  Elizabeth.  Under  Somerset  the  Commons 
rejected  measures  favoured  by  the  Protector  for  the 
amelioration  of  social  distress  ;  under  Northumberland 
they  rejected  a  treason  bill ;  under  Mary  they  rejected 
her  first  bill  for  the  restoration  of  Roman  Catholicism  ; 
under  Elizabeth  dozens  of  bills  were  rejected  by  small 
or  large  majorities.  Of  course  no  one  denies  that 
pressure  was  brought  to  bear ;  the  point  is  that  that 
pressure  was  neither  violent  nor  unconstitutional,  that 
it  often  failed,  and  that  Parliament  was  a  free  force  to 
be  reckoned  with  and  not  a  negligible  quantity  of 
dependants  on  the  royal  will. 

Another  privilege,  upon  which  Parliament  prided 
itself,  was  freedom  from  arrest,  not  merely  for  its 
members  but  for  its  members'  servants.  It  was  claimed 
by  the  House  in  1543  and  acknowledged  by  Henry  Vlll. 
in  a  remarkable  speech,  in  which  he  asserted  that 
the  royal  dignity  never  stood  so  high  as  in  the  time  of 
Parliament,  when  he  as  head  and  they  as  members 
were  conjoined  and  knit  together  in  one  body  politic, 
so  that  an  offence  to  the  meanest  member  of  the 
House  was  an  offence  against  the  King  and  whole 
Court  of  Parliament.  Herein  he  was  adumbrating  the 
sound  constitutional  theory  that  the  King  in  Parliament 
is  the  real  sovereign,  and  expressing  that  unity  between 


126      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

King  and  Parliament  which  gave  him  his  extraordinary 
strength.  He  arrested  no  member;  and  even  Eliza- 
beth, who  violated  this  principle  by  the  imprisonment 
of  Peter  Wentworth,  paid  homage  to  it  by  pretending 
that  the  punishment  was  not  for  any  words  spoken  in 
?the  House  of  Commons.  Henry's  system  was  in  fact 
the  reverse  of  the  Stuart  system  ;  he  tried  to  have  as 
much,  they  as  little,  as  possible  to  do  with  Parliament. 
He  sought  Parliamentary  authorisation  for  all  his  acts ; 
they  sought  to  show  that  their  acts  needed  no  Parlia- 
mentary sanction.  He  consulted  Parliament  on  all  sorts 
of  questions  in  which  there  was  no  constitutional  obliga- 
tion for  him  to  do  so  ;  they  refused  to  consult  Parliament 
on  questions  in  which  it  was  constitutionally  obligatory. 
He  could  use  Parliament,  and  did  not  wish  to  dispense 
with  so  valuable  a  weapon ;  they  could  not  use  Parlia- 
ment, and  wished  to  do  without  it.  To  them  it  was  a 
stumbling-block,  to  him  it  was  a  stepping-stone. 

And  so  it  was  that  Henry  vill.  encouraged,  fostered, 
and  developed  Parliament ;  he  respected  its  privileges, 
he  recognised  its  authority,  he  extended  its  sphere ; 
and  he  helped  to  forge  the  weapon  which  was  to  over- 
throw the  monarchy.  This  was  no  part  of  his  design, 
but  he  was  not  responsible  for  the  Stuarts ;  he  even 
sought  to  exclude  them  from  the  throne.  Nor  would 
he  have  developed  Parliament  if  he  had  been  conscious 
of  Parliamentary  opposition  to  his  policy.  He  was  an 
opportunist,  and  his  system  was  based  on  the  circum- 
stances of  his  time.  Those  circumstances  changed  ; 
they  ceased  to  exist  in  Elizabeth's  reign.  Both  parties 
began  to  get  independent  and  a  little  arrogant.     Par- 


PARLIAMENT  127 

liament  began  to  think  it  could  do  with  a  little  less 
monarchical  help  and  supervision  :  and  the  monarchy 
thought  it  would  be  happier  without  its  Parliamentary 
mate.  Their  mutual  affection  cooled,  but  no  divorce 
was  possible.  Parliament  and  the  Crown  were  bound 
together  by  law  and  necessity,  and  the  result  was  an 
acrimonious  domestic  struggle  as  to  which  should  be 
the  predominant  partner.  The  decline  of  the  monarchy 
begins  in  the  reign  of  a  Queen,  which,  perhaps,  was 
proper  and  was  certainly  natural  in  an  age  which  did 
not  believe  in  the  equality  of  the  sexes.  But  it  was 
mainly  due  to  the  growth  of  Parliament  and  of  the 
forces  which  it  represented.  Parliament,  encouraged 
and  educated  by  Henry  Vlll.,  grew  conscious  of  its 
strength.  Internal  peace  produced  prosperity;  Puri- 
tanism begat  a  stubborn  and  stiff-necked  generation 
impervious  to  the  wiles  of  Tudor  Queens.  From  the 
palmy  days  of  Athens  dominion  of  the  sea  has  been 
associated  with  democratic  impulse  ;  and  English  and 
Dutch  sea-dogs  could  not  brook  a  despotism.  Eliza- 
bethan literature  signifies  an  awakening  of  national 
consciousness.  Even  religious  controversy  had  forced 
men  to  take  one  of  two  sides,  and  thus  to  think  and 
form  opinions  for  themselves.  The  Spanish  dominion 
of  Queen  Mary's  reign  provoked  a  national  reaction ; 
and  Elizabeth  had  not  been  long  on  the  throne  before 
Parliament  began  to  assert  its  voice  against  the  Crown. 
Its  advice  was  not  always  wise,  and  its  ground  against 
the  government  was  often  badly  chosen.  It  could  not 
force  the  Queen  to  marry,  but  it  went  further  in  the 
attempt  than  any  modern  Parliament  would  do ;   and 


128      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

its  arguments  against  the  Queen  of  Scots  were  both 
futile  and  ferocious,  betraying  more  theological  passion 
than  political  wisdom.  It  needed  training  and  ex- 
perience before  it  could  be  trusted  to  manage  national 
affairs,  but  it  was  feeling  its  feet.  It  had  got  the  idea 
that  it  was  to  be  something  more  than  the  sleeping 
partner  in  the  government.  Men  began  to  keep 
journals  of  Parliament  as  records  of  importance.  It 
afforded  a  sphere  for  ambition  ;  and  ambitious  men 
began  to  seek  a  seat  in  Parliament.  For  the  first 
time  heirs  to  peerages  are  proud  to  sit  in  the  House  of 
Commons  ;  and  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  part  played 
by  the  family  of  Russell  in  English  Parliamentary 
history  that  the  first  two  instances  of  this  practice,  now 
so  common,  are  those  in  which  the  eldest  sons  of  the 
first  and  second  Earls  of  Bedford  secured  election  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  Membership  became  a  privi- 
lege rather  than  a  burden.  Men  were  ready  to  pay  for 
it ;  not  merely  to  serve  without  wages,  but  to  pay  con- 
stituencies for  electing  them,  and  the  first  instance  of  the 
bribery  of  a  constituency  occurs  in  Elizabeth's  reign. 

This  meant  a  new  spirit  of  Parliamentary  pugnacity; 
and  the  assertiveness  of  the  House  of  Commons  pro- 
voked many  a  quarrel  with  the  House  of  Lords  and 
much  resistance  from  the  Crown.  Parliament  passed 
many  measures  distasteful  to  the  government,  and  no 
sovereign  vetoed  more  bills  than  Queen  Elizabeth. 
She  began  to  impugn  the  privileges  of  Parliament ; 
she  tried  to  deny  the  right  of  the  Commons  to  decide 
whether  a  Parliamentary  election  had  been  valid  or 
not,  and  she  failed.     Possibly  it  was  at  her  instigation 


PARLIAMENT  129 

that  Speaker  Onslow,  who  was  the  Queen's  serjeant- 
at-law,  omitted  to  claim  the  privilege  of  free  speech  in 
1566.  The  omission  was  reprobated  by  the  House, 
and  this  experiment  was  not  repeated.  But  the  Queen 
went  further,  and  on  one  occasion  roundly  declared 
that  Parliamentary  freedom  of  speech  consisted  simply 
in  saying  'yea'  and  'nay.'  This,  again,  was  promptly 
and  successfully  repudiated  by  the  Commons,  and  they 
likewise  compelled  the  Queen  to  abandon  her  practice 
of  granting  monopolies. 

The  divergence  increased  after  the  Spanish  Armada, 
when  men  felt  that  the  external  danger  had  passed 
away,  and  that  there  was  no  longer  need  of  a  royal 
dictatorship  hedged  about  with  special  sanctions  and 
endowed  with  special  powers.  And  the  last  years  of 
Elizabeth's  reign  shade  off  imperceptibly  into  the  first 
years  of  the  Stuarts.  For  almost  every  claim  put 
forward  by  James  I.  and  Charles  i.  you  can  find  a 
precedent  under  Elizabeth.  In  1601  Mr.  Serjeant 
Hele  averred  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  the 
Queen  had  as  much  right  to  all  the  lands  and  goods 
of  her  subjects  as  to  any  revenue  of  her  crown :  *  at 
which,'  says  the  Parliamentary  diarist,  '  the  House 
hummed,  and  laughed,  and  talked.'  '  Well,'  quoth  the 
Serjeant,  'all  your  humming  shall  not  put  me  out 
of  countenance.'  The  Speaker  intervened  and  the 
Serjeant  proceeded,  and  '  when  he  had  spoken  a  little 
while,  the  House  hummed  again,  and  he  sat  down.' 
The  Stuarts  went  no  further  than  this  Elizabethan 
Serjeant ;  but  there  came  a  time  when  the  House  did 
more  than  hum,  and  laugh,  and  talk. 

I 


I30      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


VI 

SOCIAL  REVOLUTION 

Hitherto  we  have  been  dealing  mainly  with  the  mon- 
archy and  with  the  upper  and  middle  classes  of  English 
society  in   the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries ;   for 
Parliament,  it  must  be  remembered,  only  represented  a 
small  fraction  of  the  population  ;  and  it  is  not  until  very 
recent  times,  indeed,  that  the  bulk  of  the  English  nation 
has  found  adequate  means  of  expression  in  the  House 
of  Commons.     Now,  human  nature  being  what  it  is, 
the  class  which  has  enjoyed  power  has  always  exercised 
It,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  in  varying  degrees  in 
its   own   interests.      Aristotle   pointed    that   out   long 
enough  ago,  and  Hobbes  on  that  supposition  based 
his  plea  for  a  monarchy :  the  interests  of  a  monarch, 
he  said,  would  be  those  of  the  whole  nation.     That 
contention    is    hardly   borne   out   by   the   records   of 
history.     Henry  II.  had  barely  elaborated  an  efficient 
governmental   machine    before   Richard    I.   and   John 
began  to  use  that  machine  to  extract  money  from  their 
people  for  their  own  particular  ends.     The  possession 
of  a  sharp  sword  is  always  a  strong  temptation  to  use 
it ;  and  overgrown  armaments  are  always  a  threat  to 
the  peace  of  the  world.     So  the  possession  of  absolute 
power  inevitably  tends  to  make  its  possessor  arbitrary 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  131 

and  to  impair  his  character.  We  can  trace  that  process 
in  Henry  vill.,  in  Elizabeth,  and  in  almost  every 
monarch  who  has  wielded  despotic  sway.  But  aristo- 
cracies have  not  been  much  better.  As  soon  as  the 
English  nobles  had  weakened  the  throne,  they  pro- 
ceeded to  usurp  its  powers  and  use  them  to  strengthen 
their  own  position  and  privileges.  Their  land  had 
been  granted  to  William  the  Conqueror's  barons  to 
be  held  as  a  trust,  and  on  condition  of  its  bearing  the 
whole  burden  of  national  defence.  Gradually  the 
obligation  was  repudiated,  and  the  trust  was  turned 
into  absolute  property  to  be  enjoyed  as  the  owner 
pleased,  instead  of  being  administered  in  the  national 
interest.  The  House  of  Lords  was,  in  the  days  of 
Edward  I.,  an  assembly  of  royal  nominees  selected  by 
the  King  for  particular  purposes ;  there  was  no  idea 
that  the  son  was  necessarily  fit  for  this  function 
because  his  father  had  been,  and  eldest  sons  were 
not  summoned,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  the  Upper 
House.  The  Crown  could  exercise  its  discretion ;  but 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  by  a  decision  of  the  peers 
themselves,  and  not  by  any  Act  of  Parliament,  it  was 
established  that  the  Crown  had  no  rights  !n  the 
matter,  and  the  House  of  Lords  became  hereditary. 
By  the  same  influence  the  land-tax,  which  had  been 
an  easy  substitute  for  the  feudal  obligation  of  military 
service,  was  shifted  on  to  the  brewers  ;  and  special 
laws  were  passed  to  protect  the  game  of  the  land- 
owners ;  whole  districts  in  the  Highlands  have  been 
depopulated  to  provide  sport  for  dukes  and  marquises, 
just  as  William  the  Conqueror  created  the  New  Forest. 


132       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Elsewhere  forestry  and  agriculture  have  been  sacrificed 
in  the  same  class  interest.  Then  in  their  turn  the 
upper  middle  classes  became  predominant ;  they  con- 
trolled the  House  of  Commons,  not  the  House  of 
Lords ;  but,  when  in  the  eighteenth  century  the 
House  of  Commons  had  seized  political  power,  it 
was  no  more  inclined  than  the  Stuarts  had  been  to 
share  it  with  others.  The  reporting  of  speeches,  the 
publication  of  division  -  lists,  and  the  presence  of 
strangers  in  the  House  were  all  prohibited,  lest,  as 
it  was  said,  there  should  arise  some  idea  that  members 
were  responsible  to  some  authority  outside  the  walls 
of  the  House.  It  was  this  repudiation  of  responsibility 
to  the  nation  which  laid  the  House  open  to  the  in- 
trigues, the  corruption,  and  intimidation  of  George  III. ; 
the  King  could  never  have  defied  the  nation ;  he  could 
defy  a  corrupt  and  irresponsible  House  of  Commons. 

So,  too,  the  dominant  interest  of  the  middle  classes 
was  mercantile,  and  thus  we  get  the  mercantile  system. 
The  influence  of  money  competed  with  that  of  land  ; 
Ireland  was  ruined  and  colonies  lost  in  order  to  protect 
the  English  commercial  classes  ;  and  sordid  interests 
had  mtich  to  do  with  wars  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Even  the  great  Revolutionary  war  began  as  much 
because  the  French  opened  the  Scheldt  and  threatened 
to  make  Antwerp  the  rival  of  London  as  because  they 
had  cut  off  the  head  of  their  King.  In  the  wars  of  the 
Spanish  and  Austrian  succession  England  fought 
largely  in  order  to  secure  a  share  in  the  Spanish- 
American  trade ;  and  the  price  for  which  England 
and   Holland  sold   their  alliance  to  Austria  was  the 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  133 

prevention  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands  from  com- 
peting with  their  commerce  or  forming  an  East  India 
Company.  The  war  against  Napoleon  would  not  have 
been  waged  so  persistently,  had  it  not  incidentally 
delivered  into  England's  hands  the  carrying  trade  of 
the  world.  Now  this  middle-class  predominance  is 
passing  away,  and  there  are  not  wanting  signs  that 
the  masses,  to  which  power  has  come  by  reason  of 
numbers,  are  demanding  a  long-deferred  share  in  the 
good  things  of  life  and  of  politics.  Whether  democracy 
will  be  more  national  in  its  outlook  and  less  dominated 
by  class  interests  than  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and 
bourgeoisie y  remains  yet  to  be  seen. 

It  will  therefore  be  readily  understood  that  in  the 
sixteenth  century  there  was  little  sympathy  between 
Parliament  and  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  that  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  social  discontent,  which  could  find 
no  outlet  except  by  way  of  revolution.  Indeed,  this 
lack  of  sympathy  was  one  of  the  causes  for  the  weak- 
ness of  Parliament  against  the  Crown  in  the  sixteenth,  as 
well  as  in  the  eighteenth,  century.  The  peasants  were 
much  more  concerned  with  the  thousand  and  one  petty 
tyrants  of  the  village  than  with  the  one  great  tyrant  on 
the  throne;  and  they  were  rather  inclined  to  look  to 
the  tyrant  on  the  throne  to  protect  them  against  the 
tyrants  of  the  village,  from  whose  ranks  the  county 
members  of  Parliament  were  invariably  chosen.  This 
trust  in  the  monarchy  was  only  repaid  in  a  very  partial 
manner,  for  the  peasant  was  not  politically  effective ; 
he  had  no  vote,  and  the  Tudors  always  wanted  a  quid 
pro  quo,  and  expected  political  support  in  return  for 


134      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

any  favours  which  they  might  bestow.  They  chose 
the  strongest  forces  on  which  to  rely:  and  Pro- 
tector Somerset  found  to  his  cost  that  the  good 
wishes  of  the  peasants  and  of  town  proletariat 
were  little  protection  against  the  solid  ranks  of  the 
landed  gentry  and  middle  classes. 

The  social  unrest  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  the 
result  of  the  break-up  of  the  feudalism  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Feudalism  was  essentially  a  conservative 
organisation  of  the  social  system  ;  and  it  is  commonly 
spoken  of  as  though  it  combined  all  the  evils  which  it 
is  possible  to  inflict  upon  mankind.  But  this  is  by 
no  means  a  fair  statement  of  the  case ;  feudalism  had 
its  advantages  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
peasant.  It  is  true  that  he  had  little  liberty,  but  he 
also  had  less  worry  than  he  has  at  the  present  time.  The 
struggle  for  existence  was  not  so  keen,  and  he  was  more 
secure  of  food  and  lodging  than  he  is  under  the  economic 
conditions  of  to-day.  He  was  not  treated  with  much 
respect,  but  he  was  treated  with  a  certain  amount  of 
care.  He  was  looked  upon  as  being  something 
like  a  beast  of  burden,  and  his  rights  were  extremely 
few.  But  men  pay  a  certain  amount  of  attention  to 
their  horses  and  their  cattle,  because  their  usefulness 
depends  upon  their  health  and  strength.  So  the  value 
of  the  villein  to  his  lord  depended  upon  his  being 
clothed  and  fed  in  such  a  way  that  hunger  and  want 
did  not  impair  his  capacity  to  perform  the  services 
expected  from  him  by  his  lord.  The  feudal  lords  had 
a  direct  personal  interest  in  the  well-being  of  their 
dependants,  which  is  wanting  in  the  present  economic 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  135 

system.     The  whole   of  society  was   bound  together 
in  a  close  mutual  relationship,  and  was  regulated  by 
an   infinite   series   of  minute   and    careful   rules.     Its 
rigidity  prevented  development,  but  progress  was  not 
desired.     The  ideal  of  the  Middle  Ages  was,  like  the 
old  Greek  ideal,  conservative,  not  progressive :  it  was 
G-(£>i^€iv  TO  7]6o^,  to  preserve  the  existing  type  of  social 
and  political  organisation.     Although  the  caste  system 
was  never  developed  in  England  to  anything  like  the 
same  extent  that   it  was   abroad,  it   was   practically 
impossible  for  the  peasant  to  rise   out   of  his   class, 
except  through  the  portals  of  the  Church.     Even  in 
the  city-states   of  Northern  Italy,  which  are  usually 
considered  democratic,  liberty  was  collectivist  and  not 
individual.     As  societies  they  were  free,  as  individuals 
they  were  not.     The  individual  member  of  the  pro- 
letariat was   tied  throughout   life  to   one  fixed  class, 
one  trade,  one  corporation,  one  parish,  one  quarter  of 
the  city.     His  status  was  fixed  as  rigidly  as  that  of 
the  villein,  and  everything  was  regulated  for  him  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave.     The  only  vent  for  individual 
exuberance   consisted   in   those    faction-fights,   which 
were  the  most  permanent  and  apparently  the    most 
popular  of  all  these  medieval  municipal  institutions. 
In  the  rural  districts  the  organisation  was  not  so  close, 
but  the  fixity  of  social    arrangements   was   as   rigid. 
The  number  of  holdings  was  almost  stationary,  and 
the  number  of  families  fixed.     Population  accordingly 
did  not  increase,  and  it  is  supposed  to  have  remained 
much  the  same  from  the  Norman  Conquest  down  to 
the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages.     Now,  the  growth  of 


136      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

population  is  one  of  the  great  factors  in  producing 
competition  ;  and  thus  one  of  the  greatest  stimulants 
of  modern  times  was  lacking  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Everything  was,  in  fact,  regulated  by  custom,  not  by 
competition  ;  and  custom  is  perhaps  the  most  char- 
acteristic word  of  the  Middle  Ages.  When  Henry  II. 
draws  up  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon,  he  professes 
merely  to  be  enacting  the  good  old  customs  ;  the  dues 
which  merchants  pay  on  their  wares  are  customs ;  the 
usual  way  in  which  land  is  held  is  customary  tenure. 

This  excessive  regulation  produced  stagnation,  but 
even  stagnation  has  its  advantages ;  it  does  not 
encourage  strife,  and  class-rivalries  were  not  so  bitter 
as  they  afterwards  became.  The  Peasant  Revolts  of 
the  fourteenth  century  are  a  sign  that  the  Middle 
Ages  are  passing  away.  They  proclaim  that  the 
stagnation  has  come  to  an  end,  that  the  peasant  has 
caught  a  glimpse  of  better  things,  and  that  he  wants 
to  reach  those  things  by  speedier  paths  than  what 
Wordsworth  calls  the  *  meagre,  stale,  forbidding  ways  of 
custom,  law,  or  statute.'  The  ultimate  causes  of  this 
discontent  were  perhaps  due  to  an  improvement  in 
the  position  of  the  peasants  themselves ;  for  it  is  not 
when  things  are  at  their  worst  that  men  rebel.  They 
rise  in  hope,  and  not  in  despair.  It  has  often  been 
remarked  that  the  economic  position  of  the  peasant  in 
France  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
better  than  it  had  been  earlier,  and  better  than  that  of 
the  peasant  in  Germany  or  Russia  at  the  same  time. 
Yet  it  was  in  France  that  the  Revolution  broke  out. 
So,  towards  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  a  certain 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  137 

amelioration  in  the  lot  of  the  agricultural  labourer  had 
preceded  the  rising  of  1381.  Services  had  been 
largely  commuted  for  rents,  and  the  serfs  had  achieved 
their  emancipation,  though  some  remained  in  bondage 
as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century.  Then  came  the 
Black  Death,  which  swept  off  so  large  a  proportion  of 
the  population,  and  depleted  the  labour  market.  The 
scarcity  of  labour  enabled  the  labourers  to  raise  the 
price  of  their  labour,  and  to  demand  higher  wages. 
The  landlords  tried  to  meet  this  move  by  compelling 
them  to  return  to  a  state  of  serfdom ;  and  this  attempt 
caused  the  discontent  which  culminated  in  the 
Peasants'  Revolt. 

The  suppression  of  that  rising  did  not,  however, 
mean  a  return  to  the  old  conditions ;  the  peasants 
were  not  reduced  to  their  former  serfdom,  their  wages 
did  not  materially  suffer,  and  it  has  been  maintained 
that  the  fifteenth  century  was  the  golden  age  of  the 
agricultural  labourer.  Evil  times  were,  however,  in 
store.  The  rapid  development  of  wealth  always 
depresses  those  who  do  not  participate  in  it.  You 
can  feel  the  same  thing  when  a  millionaire,  or  a  group 
of  millionaires,  arrives  at  an  hotel  at  which  you  have 
been  staying.  Prices  at  once  begin  to  rise,  and  attend- 
ance on  your  wants  to  droop.  After  a  time  you  find 
that  your  resources  do  not  permit  you  to  stay;  they 
may  have  been  all  right  before  the  advent  of  osten- 
tatious wealth,  but  this  advent  has  depressed  your 
position,  and  also,  perhaps,  your  spirits.  So,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  advent  of  a  capitalist  class 
depressed  the  condition  of  the  peasants   in    England 


138       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

and  over  the  greater  part  of  Western  Europe.  It  was 
not  merely  that  the  peasant  became  relatively  poorer 
than  he  was  before ;  he  also  suffered  directly  through 
the  application  of  commercial  ideas  to  the  system  of 
land-tenure.  The  merchant,  who  had  made  a  fortune 
in  trade,  used  it  to  purchase  landed  estates,  and  thus 
to  make  himself  a  gentleman  ;  but  he  could  not  avoid 
importing  into  his  new  position  the  principles,  or  lack 
of  principles,  which  he  had  practised  in  the  old  ;  he 
could  not  help  trying  to  make  money  out  of  the  land 
because  he  had  been  making  money  all  his  life  out 
of  trade  or  manufactures.  Now,  the  old  feudal  lords 
had  not  regarded  the  land  as  something  out  of  which 
money  was  to  be  made ;  they  had  looked  upon  the 
land  as  a  source  of  men  rather  than  as  a  source  of 
money.  Their  first  requisite  had  been  services,  not 
rents  ;  they  wanted  men  to  fight  for  them.  *  The  law 
is  ended,'  ran  a  proverb  of  the  time,  *as  a  man  is 
friended ' ;  and  a  numerous  body  of  retainers  was  the 
best  guarantee  for  the  peaceable  possession  of  one's 
own  property,  and  the  most  promising  means  of  secur- 
ing other  people's.  Even  when  not  required  for  private 
warfare,  the  tenant  was  wanted  to  plough  his  lord's 
land,  or  reap  his  lord's  crops.  The  feudal  lord  could 
do  without  money,  but  he  could  not  do  without  men. 
He  might  work  his  estates  so  as  to  produce  as  many 
men  as  possible  ;  he  would  not  work  them  so  as  to 
yield  the  utmost  farthing  in  cash. 

All  this  was  changed  when  the  peaceful  business- 
like trader  took  the  place  of  the  warlike  feudal 
lord.     Private  war  was  not  to  his  taste ;  and  retainers 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  139 

were  looked  at  askance  by  Henry  VII.  and  his  suc- 
cessors. Land  as  a  source  of  men  began  to  lose  its 
attraction  ;  but,  as  a  source  of  wealth,  it  was  more 
sought  after  than  ever.  It  was  regarded  as  an  invest- 
ment, and  was  exploited  on  purely  business  principles. 
Competition  supplanted  custom,  and  the  excessive 
regulation  of  the  Middle  Ages  gave  way  to  laissei' 
faire.  The  cash-nexus,  as  Carlyle  called  it,  became 
the  principal  tie  between  the  landlord  and  his  tenants. 
Instead  of  mutual  obligation  of  service  and  defence, 
there  was  mutual  suspicion,  each  party  competing  with 
the  other  in  its  efforts  to  get  the  best  of  the  bargain. 
The  capitalist,  as  usual,  had  the  advantage  ;  and  free 
contract  commonly  means  the  exploitation  of  the  weak 
by  the  strong.  There  can  be  no  really  free  contract 
except  when  the  two  parties  meet  on  something  like 
equal  terms  ;  and  when  a  man's  living  depends  upon  his 
getting  a  job,  he  is  hardly  at  liberty  to  decline  an  offer. 
The  position  of  the  capitalists  was,  moreover,  enor- 
mously strengthened  by  a  momentous  change  which 
took  place  in  the  methods  of  cultivation,  and  made 
agricultural  labour  almost  a  drug  on  the  market.  The 
somewhat  primitive  methods  of  medieval  production, 
the  lack  of  capital,  and  the  economic  arrangements 
of  the  village  community  had  made  cultivation  on  a 
large  scale  impossible.  But  these  conditions  had  now 
been  altered  ;  capital  was  forthcoming,  and  business 
capacity;  and  men  began  to  see  that  the  old  system 
of  petite  culture  was  economically  wasteful.  They 
began  what  was  called  engrossing  lands,  that  is  to 
say,  they  accumulated    a   large   number  of  holdings. 


140      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

allowed  all  the  tenements  but  one  to  decay,  turned 
out  the  independent  yeomen,  and  put  in  their  places 
a  number  of  hired  labourers.  That  is  one  of  the  three 
processes  to  which  the  name  of  enclosure  is  loosely 
applied.  Another  of  these  processes  was  the  conver- 
sion of  arable  land  to  pasture ;  and  this  was  still  more 
prejudicial  to  the  peasants  than  the  change  from  culti- 
vation on  a  small  scale  to  cultivation  on  a  large  scale ; 
for  even  cultivation  on  a  large  scale  requires  a  certain 
amount  of  labour,  but  pasture  requires  scarcely  any 
labour  at  all.  When  a  sheep-run  was  formed  out  of 
a  number  of  holdings,  one  man  and  a  dog  could  do 
the  work  which  formerly  required  dozens  of  yeomen  ; 
and  many  thousands  of  peasants  were  thus  thrown  out 
of  employment. 

The  third  of  these  processes  was  the  enclosure  of 
common  lands ;  and  the  legal  rights  and  wrongs  of 
this  question  have  been  much  debated.  If  we  believe 
with  Freeman,  J.  R.  Green,  Bishop  Stubbs,  and  others, 
that  the  original  Anglo-Saxon  village  community  was 
an  association  of  freemen  owning  its  land  in  full  pro- 
prietorship, then  all  these  enclosures  were  wanton 
usurpations  on  the  part  of  the  lords  at  the  expense 
of  the  commoners.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  believe 
that  the  original  Anglo-Saxon  community  was  not 
free,  but  dependent  on  a  lord  who  really  owned  the 
commons,  then  there  was  nothing  illegal  in  these 
enclosures,  and  the  lords  were  only  recovering  a  right 
which  they  were  in  danger  of  losing  through  the  pre- 
scription enjoyed  by  their  tenants.  The  Statute  of 
Merton  in    1236  had  permitted   the  lords  to  enclose 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  141 

as  much  of  the  commons  as  they  desired,  provided 
they  left  'sufficient'  for  their  tenants.  This  may  be 
interpreted  as  either  the  assertion  of  an  ancient  right 
or  the  creation  of  a  new  one.  In  any  case,  the  fact 
that  it  was  passed  during  the  reign  of  Henry  III., 
when  the  power  of  the  Crown  was  almost  in  abeyance, 
illustrates  the  way  in  which  the  nobles  used  their 
opportunities  in  their  own  interests.  Nor  was  it  of 
much  practical  importance  to  the  peasants  whether 
they  were  suffering  from  the  assertion  of  a  long-lapsed 
right  or  the  creation  of  a  new  disability.  In  either 
case  the  material  hardship  was  the  same.  These 
enclosures  would  be  made  for  one  of  two  purposes — 
either  to  convert  the  open  lands  into  enclosed  pasture 
land,  or  to  convert  them  into  enclosed  arable  land  ; 
but  the  former  was  fifty  per  cent,  more  profitable  than 
the  latter,  and  consequently  was  by  far  the  more 
usual  process  with  the  landlords. 

All  these  changes  went  on  with  enormous  strides 
after  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century ;  and  they 
involved  a  social  dislocation  almost  unparalleled  in 
English  history.  To  them  must  be  ascribed  many  of 
the  evils  which  theological  prejudice  has  attributed 
to  the  religious  Reformation.  Nearly  a  century  ago 
William  Cobbett,  who  had  no  particular  theological 
axe  to  grind,  wrote  a  history  of  the  Reformation,  in 
which  he  represented  that  movement  as  a  revolution 
of  the  rich  against  the  poor ;  and  that  line  of  argument 
has  been  taken  up  by  writers  whose  main  object  has 
been  to  undo  the  work  of  the  Reformation  by  casting 
discredit  upon  its  character.     But  the  social  revolution 


142      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

was  not  the  product  of  the  religious  revolution,  though 
the  two  movements  doubtless  had  something  common 
in  their  origin  ;  neither  would  have  taken  place  but 
for  the  development  of  commerce,  capital,  and  a  middle 
class.  But  the  only  way  in  which  the  Reformation 
directly  affected  the  social  revolution  was  that  the 
Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries  brought  into  the  general 
stream  of  tendency  lands  which  might  otherwise  have 
remained  outside.  On  the  other  hand,  the  only  scholar,^ 
who  has  gone  at  all  thoroughly  into  the  materials  for 
the  history  of  this  agricultural  crisis,  declares  that  there 
is  little  evidence  for  the  conventional  assertion  that  the 
monks  were  kindlier  landlords  than  the  laymen. 

The  social  revolution  was  due  to  causes  entirely 
independent  of  the  religious  and  doctrinal  movement. 
It  was  not  the  Reformation  which  made  sheep-farming 
more  profitable  than  corn-growing,  and  cultivation  on 
a  large  scale  more  economical  than  cultivation  on  a 
small  scale.  Nor  was  it  the  Reformation  which 
necessitated  the  employment  of  foreign  mercenaries 
by  the  English  government,  and  impaired  the  learning 
of  the  English  universities — both  of  which  develop- 
ments have  by  a  somewhat  curious  logical  process 
been  ascribed  to  the  theological  shortcomings  of  the 
English  government.  The  first  argument  is  that  the 
religious  changes  were  so  unpopular  that  the  govern- 
ment could  not  rely  on  the  fidelity  of  English  troops, 
and  so  were  driven  to  hire  Germans,  Spaniards,  and 
Italians.      The   second    is   that   the    Reformers   were 

^  I.  S.  Leadam,  Domesday  of  Inclosures^  1517-18  (Royal  Hist.  Soc, 
2  vols.  1897). 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  143 

ignorant  Iconoclasts,  who  delighted  in  spoiling  the 
universities.  Both  results  may  be  traced  with  much 
more  reason  to  the  effects  of  the  social  revolution. 
The  employment  of  mercenaries  was  due  to  the 
decay  of  the  material  on  which  the  English  military 
forces  had  been  based  throughout  the  Middle  Ages, 
namely  the  yeomen.  Military  service  had  been  a 
local  rather  than  a  national  obligation  ;  and,  although 
the  forces  were  paid  by  the  Crown,  they  were  equipped 
and  provided  by  the  various  localities,  and  it  was  the 
common  calculation  that  each  parish  in  England 
could  furnish  one  man  to  serve  abroad  in  case 
of  need.  But,  when  the  yeomen  were  evicted  in 
thousands,  and  their  tenements  destroyed,  this  system 
broke  down,  not  only  through  lack  of  yeomen,  but 
because,  in  the  words  of  a  contemporary,  '  shepherds 
be  but  ill  archers,'  and  neglected  those  martial  exer- 
cises for  which  the  yeomen,  whose  place  they  took, 
were  famous.  A  national  standing  army  would  not 
then  have  been  tolerated  by  the  nation,  nor  could  it 
have  been  maintained  by  the  feeble  financial  resources 
of  the  government.  It  was  necessary  to  have  recourse 
to  the  readiest  expedient,  and  foreign  mercenaries 
were  the  only  trained  force  ready  to  hand.  So  with 
the  decrease  of  the  universities,  it  was  due  to  the 
financial  straits  of  the  class  which  had  furnished  the 
mass  of  university  students — the  yeomanry.  For 
university  education  and,  still  more,  university  endow- 
ments were  originally  intended  for  the  poor  and  not 
for  the  rich.  But  yeomen  ejected  from  their  lands 
were  in  no  position  to  send  their  sons  to  Oxford  or  to 


144      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Cambridge,  and  the  University  of  London  did  not 
then  exist ;  just  as  to-day  there  are  schools  whose 
prosperity  varies  inversely  with  the  degree  of  agricul- 
tural depression.  So  the  numbers  declined,  and  the 
barbarous  idea  grew  up,  which  still  survives  among  the 
backward  classes  in  England,  that  a  university  educa- 
tion is  a  privilege  to  which  only  a  rich  man's  son  has  a 
title,  and  that  university  endowments,  bestowed  for  the 
sons  of  the  poor,  can  only  be  rightly  enjoyed  by  the 
sons  of  the  rich. 

These  were  some  of  the  indirect  results  of  the 
economic  transformation.  It  was  the  immediate  re- 
sults which  impressed  contemporary  observers,  and 
they  were  startling  enough.  We  have  the  unemployed 
always  with  us  ;  but  the  '  unemployed '  question  of  to- 
day is  a  bagatelle  compared  with  the  problem  created 
by  the  enclosures  of  the  sixteenth  century.  According 
to  one  calculation  made  in  1548,  three  hundred  thou- 
sand men  had  been  thrown  out  of  work  by  the  decay 
of  agriculture — or  about  ten  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
population.  Here  was  the  raw  material  out  of  which 
the  revolts  of  Tudor  times  were  made.  These  persons, 
complained  one  of  the  Supplications  presented  to 
Edward  Vl.'s  government,  *  had  need  to  have  a  living. 
Whither  shall  they  go?  from  shire  to  shire  ...  by 
compulsion  driven,  some  of  them  to  beg  and  some  to 
steal.*  A  great  number  of  them,  wrote  a  Bishop  to 
the  King,  *  are  so  pined  and  famished  by  the  reason  of 
the  great  scarcity  and  dearth  of  all  kinds  of  victuals 
which  the  great  sheep-masters  have  brought  into  this 
noble   realm,  that   they   are   become   more    like    the 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  145 

slavery  and  peasantry  of  France  than  the  ancient  and 
godly  yeomanry  of  England.'  The  severity  of  the 
statutes  against  vagabondage  betrays  the  alarm  of  the 
governing  classes,  and  the  frequency  of  their  repetition 
testifies  to  their  failure  to  produce  any  effect.  *  They 
be  cast  into  prison  as  vagabonds,'  wrote  Sir  Thomas 
More, '  because  they  go  about  and  work  not  whom  no 
man  will  set  at  work,  though  they  never  so  willingly 
proffer  themselves  thereto.'  Added  to  the  misery  of 
unemployment  was  an  enormous  inflation  of  prices 
caused  by  the  influx  of  precious  metals  from  the  gold 
and  silver  mines  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  the  scarcity  of 
victuals,  and  the  debasement  of  the  coinage.  Without 
going  into  details,  it  may  be  said  that  the  price  of  the 
ordinary  necessaries  of  life  trebled  during  the  first  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  at  a  time  when  the  overflow  of 
labour  kept  wages  almost  at  their  former  level. 

The  government  was  neither  blind  nor  indifferent  to 
this  condition  of  affairs,  but  no  English  government 
had  hitherto  been  called  upon  to  deal  with  so  complex 
and  serious  an  economic  problem  ;  and  statesmen,  who 
had  little  knowledge  of  economic  science,  were  not 
likely  to  have  much  success  in  solving  economic  pro- 
blems. The  only  alternatives  which  presented  them- 
selves to  Parliament  and  to  the  Privy  Council  were 
forcible  repression  either  of  the  peasants  or  of  the 
landlords,  or  of  both.  Really  remedial  measures 
were  quite  beyond  the  intellectual  horizon  of  that 
age ;  and  perhaps  the  crisis  was  one  which  no  legis- 
lation could  meet.  It  is  certain  that  the  old  medieval 
system  could  neither  be  retained  nor  restored  ;  and  the 

K 


146      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

only  question  is,  whether  the  transition  from  medieval 
to  modern  economic  organisation  could  have  been 
effected  with  less  disorder,  less  permanent  injury  to 
the  poor,  and  less  unfair  advantage  to  the  rich. 
England  has  been  described  as  a  Paradise  for  the 
rich,  a  Purgatory  for  the  intellectual,  and  a  Hell  for 
the  poor.  There  is  more  truth  in  that  somewhat 
truculent  antithesis  than  is  pleasant,  and  it  is  grievous 
to  reflect  that  modern  poverty  is  the  creation  of 
modern  wealth.  There  was,  of  course,  poverty  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  there  was  no  such  immeasur- 
able distance  between  the  very  rich  and  the  very 
poor ;  no  poor-law  was  found  necessary  until  after 
the  social  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  and 
starvation  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  occasional 
result  of  pestilence  or  war,  and  not  the  regular  con- 
comitant of  normal  economic  conditions. 

The  earliest  official  recognition  of  the  evils  of  these 
changes  appears  to  have  been  the  Lord  Chancellor's 
speech  at  the  opening  of  Parliament  in  1484,  when  he 
lamented  that  the  body  politic  was  daily  falling  into 
decay  through  enclosures,  through  the  driving  away  of 
tenants,  and  through  the  '  letting  down  of  tenantries.' 
The  Yorkist  policy  of  siding  with  the  lower  orders 
against  the  squirearchy  was  to  some  extent  adopted 
by  the  Tudors,  and  in  1489  and  15 15  Acts  were  passed 
against  the  accumulation  of  farms  by  wealthy  in- 
dividuals. But  the  only  serious  attempt  to  check 
enclosures  in  Henry  Vlll.'s  reign  was  made  by 
Cardinal  Wolsey  in  1517.  He  may  very  probably 
have  been  inspired  by  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  at  this 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  147 

time  was  high  in  Wolsey's  favour,  and  had  just 
published  his  Utopia^  in  which  enclosures  were  severely- 
censured.  However  that  may  be,  Wolsey  appointed  a 
commission  of  inquiry  in  15 17;  and  as  a  result  of  its 
labours,  he  issued  a  decree  for  the  laying  open  of  all 
enclosures  made  since  the  accession  of  Henry  Vll. 
Even  this  was  only  a  flash  in  the  pan  ;  proclamations 
to  the  same  effect  as  the  decree  were  issued  in  1526, 
but  neither  decree  nor  proclamation  had  any  appreci- 
able result.  The  old  enclosures  were  not  destroyed, 
and  new  ones  were  made  as  rapidly  as  before.  Wolsey 
was  immersed  in  his  spirited  foreign  policy  and  in  his 
designs  on  the  Papacy ;  then  Henry  viil.  followed 
with  his  domestic  and  ecclesiastical  embarrassments ; 
and  the  advocacy  of  remedial  measures  for  the  social 
discontent  was  left  to  a  few  individual  thinkers  and 
writers.  Some  of  them  were  Catholics,  like  More, 
Thomas  Starkey,  and  Thomas  Lupset ;  others,  like 
Henry  Brynkelow  and  Robert  Crowley,  were  Pro- 
testants ;  and  they  held  advanced  ideas  on  other 
subjects  than  the  question  of  enclosures.  Brynkelow, 
for  instance,  urged  that  all  the  proceeds  from  the 
dissolution  of  the  monasteries  should  be  devoted  to  the 
purposes  of  educational  endowment — a  suggestion 
which,  had  it  been  adopted,  would  have  made  England 
educationally  the  best  endowed  country  in  the  world. 
He  also  thought  that  both  Houses  of  Parliament  should 
sit  and  vote  together,  for,  he  said, '  it  is  not  riches  or 
authority  that  bringeth  wisdom.' 

But  it  was  not  until  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  that 
this   party  of  reform   obtained  any  real   importance. 


148      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

The  most  energetic  exponent  of  its  ideas  was  a  certain 
John  Hales,  who  has  fallen  into  undeserved  oblivion  ; 
he  was  supported  by  the  reformers,  Latimer  and  Lever, 
and  Cranmer  was  in  sympathy  with  their  aims.  But 
the  movement  came  rapidly  to  the  front  mainly 
because  it  found  a  champion  in  the  Protector  Somerset 
himself.  Their  cardinal  principle  was  that  man  was 
born  primarily  for  the  service  of  God  and  of  the 
Commonwealth.  *  It  is  not  lawful,'  declared  John 
Hales, '  for  man  to  do  what  he  lists  with  his  own  ;  but 
every  man  must  use  what  he  hath  to  the  utmost  benefit 
of  his  country.'  *  Let  us  have,'  he  said  in  his  charge 
when  acting  as  enclosure-commissioner,  *  this  godly 
opinion  with  us,  that  nothing  can  be  profitable  that  is 
not  godly  and  honest,  nor  nothing  godly  and  honest 
whereby  our  neighbours  and  Christian  brethren,  or  the 
commonwealth  of  our  country,  is  hurt  and  harmed.' 

From  their  insistence  upon  the  paramount  claims  of 
the  community,  this  party  was  called  the  Common- 
wealth's Men  ;  and  in  the  first  Parliament  of  Edward's 
reign  they  introduced  various  bills  to  give  effect  to 
their  ideas.  One  was  entitled  '  For  the  bringing  up 
poor  men's  children,'  and  it  may  have  embodied  a 
socialistic  suggestion,  made  by  Brynkelow  in  the  reign 
of  Henry  Vlil.,  that  a  certain  number  of  the  poorest 
children  in  each  town  should  be  brought  up  at  the 
expense  of  the  community.  Other  bills  were  intro- 
duced to  secure  leaseholders  from  eviction,  and  to 
prevent  the  decay  of  husbandry  and  tillage.  But  these 
were  all  rejected  either  in  the  House  of  Lords  or  in  the 
House  of  Commons ;  and  the  only  social  reform  which 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  149 

found  favour  in  the  eyes  of  Parliament  was  the  famous 
Act  providing  that  collections  should  be  made  in 
church  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  and  that  confirmed 
vagabonds  might  be  sold  into  slavery.  This  was  hardly 
calculated  to  soothe  or  satisfy  the  dispossessed 
peasantry,  and  early  in  1548,  if  not  before,  they  began 
to  revolt  in  various  counties,  while  others  of  them 
preferred  the  more  peaceful  method  of  petitioning  the 
Protector.  In  response  to  these  armed  protests, 
petitions,  and  perhaps  also  to  Latimer's  famous 
sermon  *  Of  the  Plough,'  the  Protector  issued  in  June 
1548  his  proclamation  against  enclosures,  and  ap- 
pointed a  commission  of  inquiry  into  the  whole  question. 
The  proclamation  spoke  of  the  '  insatiable  greediness ' 
of  those  by  whose  means  'houses  were  decayed, 
parishes  diminished,  the  force  of  the  realm  weakened, 
and  Christian  people  eaten  up  and  devoured  of  brute 
beasts  and  driven  from  their  houses  by  sheep  and 
cattle.'  The  commissioners  were  to  inquire  into  the 
extent  of  enclosures  made  since  1485,  and  into  the 
failure  of  previous  legislation  to  check  them,  and  to 
make  returns  of  those  who  broke  the  law. 

Some  one  has  said  that  the  way  to  an  Englishman's 
heart  lies  through  his  pocket :  certainly,  when  you 
touch  his  pocket,  his  spleen  at  once  becomes  active. 
And  this  attempt  to  inquire  into  the  illicit  gains  of  the 
landlords  during  the  previous  sixty  years  provoked  the 
fiercest  resistance.  The  official  classes  had  always 
looked  askance  at  the  Commonwealth  party;  Somer- 
set's own  colleagues  went  into  secret  opposition,  and  in 
the  counties  an  organised  plan  was  formed  to  burke  the 


ISO      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

inquiry.  Only  the  commission  over  which  Hales  him- 
self presided  ever  got  to  work  at  all ;  and  no  stone  was 
left  unturned  to  balk  its  efforts.  *  I  remember,'  said 
Latimer, '  a  certain  giant,  a  great  man  who  sat  in  com- 
mission about  these  matters  ;  and  when  the  townsmen 
would  bring  in  what  had  been  enclosed,  he  frowned  and 
chafed,  and  so  near  looked  and  threatened  the  poor 
men  that  they  durst  not  ask  their  right.'  The  land- 
lords, complained  Hales,  had  the  juries  packed  with 
their  own  servants,  and  such  was  the  multitude  of 
retainers  and  hangers-on  that  it  was  impossible  to  make 
juries  without  them.  Tenants  were  threatened  with 
eviction  if  they  gave  information  against  their  lords  ; 
and  the  juries  were  sometimes  indicted  because  they 
presented  the  truth.  '  As  it  pleaseth  my  landlord,  so 
shall  it  be.'  Other  frauds  were  employed  :  one  furrow 
would  be  ploughed  across  a  sheep-run,  and  then  the 
sheep-run  would  be  returned  as  arable  land.  Or  an  ox 
or  two  would  be  turned  out  among  a  thousand  sheep, 
and  the  land  would  be  returned  as  land  for  the  fatting 
of  cattle,  and  not  for  the  growing  of  wool.  To  prevent 
any  appearance  of  vindictiveness,  Hales  had  procured 
a  pardon  for  all  the  offenders  returned  under  this 
commission  :  the  only  result  was  that  the  offenders,  as 
Hales  says,  returned  at  once  to  their  old  vomit,  began 
immediately  to  enclose  again,  and  were  more  greedy 
than  they  were  before. 

The  same  spirit  appeared  in  the  reception  accorded 
to  the  bills  promoted  by  Hales  and  the  Protector  in  the 
ensuing  Parliament  of  1548-9.  A  few  minor  proposals 
were,  indeed,  passed  :  a  tax  of  twopence  was  imposed 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  151 

on  every  sheep  kept  in  pasture,  and  the  payment  of 
fee-farms  was  remitted  for  three  years  in  order  that  the 
proceeds  might  be  devoted  to  finding  work  for  the 
unemployed.  Another  Act  struck  at  rich  and  poor 
alike.  It  was  complained  that  victuallers  and  others 
had  conspired  to  sell  their  goods  at  artificial  and  un- 
reasonable prices  ;  in  other  words,  they  had  tried  to 
form  corners  and  trusts,  though  we  do  not  find  mention 
of  book-clubs.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  said, 
*  artificers,  handicraftsmen,  and  labourers  have  made 
confederacies  and  promises,  and  have  sworn  mutual 
oaths  not  only  that  they  should  not  meddle  with  one 
another's  work,  and  perform  and  finish  that  which 
another  hath  begun,  but  also  to  constitute  and  appoint 
how  much  work  they  shall  do  in  a  day  and  what  hours 
and  times  they  shall  work.'  In  other  words,  they 
wanted  to  establish  trades-unions.  It  is  important  to 
notice  that  even  this  Parliament,  which  was  not 
particularly  sympathetic  towards  the  poorer  classes, 
regarded  a  ring  and  a  combine  as  being  just  as  repre- 
hensible as  a  trades-union.  Both  were  opposed  to  the 
public  interest,  and  both  were  forbidden  by  law.  It  is 
one  of  our  modern  plutocratic  notions  that,  while 
capitalists  may  conspire  as  much  as  they  like  to  keep 
up  prices  or  to  limit  output,  or  to  fleece  the  public  in 
any  other  way  that  seems  convenient,  workmen  should 
not  be  allowed  in  the  public  interest  to  combine  at 
all. 

The  bills  passed  by  Parliament  were,  however,  mere 
palliatives  compared  with  those  they  rejected  ;  and 
Hales,   who   was    himself  a   member   of    Parliament, 


152      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

describes  the  fate  of  his  measures  to  prevent  the  practice 
of  gambling  with  the  people's  food.  One  was  to  arrest 
the  decay  of  tillage  and  husbandry,  by  what  expedients 
we  are  not  told  :  it  was  introduced  into  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  there  was  slaughtered.  Another  was 
designed  to  prohibit  practices  similar,  on  a  smaller 
scale,  to  the  methods  of  the  American  beef-trust : 
graziers  were,  says  Hales,  in  the  habit  of  bringing  both 
cattle  and  money  to  market,  and  then,  if  they  could 
not  get  their  price  for  their  own  beasts,  they  would 
buy  up  the  market,  and  dictate  their  own  terms.  This 
bill,  which  was  also  brought  into  the  House  of  Lords, 
was  passed  by  them  and  sent  down  to  the  Commons. 
There  it  met  with  a  stormy  reception  ;  it  was  tossed 
and  mangled,  impeded  by  dilatory  motions,  and 
referred  to  a  committee  of  its  enemies.  It  was,  says 
Hales,  as  though  a  lamb  had  been  entrusted  to  a  wolf 
for  custody. 

The  Protector  was  not  turned  from  his  course  by 
these  Parliamentary  checks.  He  avowed  that  in  spite 
*  of  the  Devil,  private  profit,  self-love,  money,  and  such- 
like the  Devil's  instruments,'  he  would  go  forward.  He 
issued  fresh  instructions  to  the  enclosure-commissioners 
in  the  spring  of  1549;  and,  to  provide  speedy  justice 
for  the  poor,  which  they  could  not  obtain  in  the 
ordinary  law-courts,  he  set  up  a  Court  of  Requests  in 
Somerset  House,  of  which  his  secretary,  William  Cecil, 
afterwards  Lord  Burghley,  acted  as  registrar.  '  It  is 
our  duty  and  our  office,'  he  wrote,  '  to  receive  poor 
men's  complaints.'  And  as  a  result  of  these  com- 
plaints, he  was  often  brought  into  conflict  with  his 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  153 

colleagues.  Warwick's  park  had  been  ploughed  up  by 
the  enclosure-commissioners,  and  Warwick  took  the 
lead  in  the  opposition  to  Somerset's  social  policy.  The 
peasants,  meanwhile,  weary  of  waiting  for  redress  which 
never  came,  made  up  their  minds  that,  in  Hales's  words, 
they  must  fight  it  out  or  else  be  reduced  to  the  like 
slavery  that  the  Frenchmen  were  in  ;  and  risings  began 
in  nearly  all  the  counties  of  England.  In  Devonshire 
and  Cornwall  the  discontent  was  diverted  into  an 
ecclesiastical  channel,  and  made  to  appear  as  a  protest 
against  the  Prayer-Book  and  Act  of  Uniformity  of 
1549 ;  but  elsewhere  it  was  seen  in  its  true  colours  as  a 
purely  agrarian  movement.  In  Norfolk  Ket  set  up  a 
commonwealth  of  peasants,  in  which  no  rich  man  did 
what  he  liked  with  his  own.  Troops,  intended  for  the 
defence  of  English  possessions  in  France  or  for  the 
subjugation  of  Scotland,  had  to  be  diverted  to  the 
eastern  or  western  shires.  English  strongholds  in 
France  and  in  Scotland  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands, 
and  their  fall  was  used  as  a  pretext  for  depriving  the 
Protector  of  office  in  the  following  October.  The  real 
reason  was  the  hatred  of  the  majority  of  the  Council 
for  his  social  and  constitutional  policy.  The  Protector 
had  tried  an  experiment  in  liberty :  he  had  repealed  all 
the  heresy-laws  and  all  the  treason-laws  of  Henry  Vlll. ; 
he  had  deliberately  repudiated  the  Tudor  system,  and 
endeavoured  to  govern  by  methods  more  suited  to 
the  eighteenth  or  the  nineteenth  than  to  the  sixteenth 
century,  while  only  an  Independent  Labour  party  would 
have  heartily  supported  his  social  policy. 

The  Protector's  fall  was  followed  by  the  complete 


154       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

reversal  of  his  schemes  ;  the  Parliament,  which  met  in 
November  1 549,  was  animated  by  a  spirit  of  panic  and 
revenge.  It  not  only  repealed  the  Protector's  measures, 
but  repudiated  the  whole  Yorkist  and  Tudor  policy 
with  regard  to  enclosures.  These  had  over  and  over 
again  been  declared  illegal :  they  were  now  expressly 
legalised,  and  it  was  enacted  that  the  lords  of  the 
manor  might  enclose  wastes,  woods,  and  pastures  not- 
withstanding the  gainsaying  and  contradiction  of  their 
tenants.  It  was  made  treason  for  forty,  and  felony  for 
twelve,  persons  to  meet  for  the  purpose  of  breaking 
down  any  enclosure  or  enforcing  any  right  of  way.  To 
summon  such  an  assembly,  or  to  incite  to  such  an  act, 
was  in  itself  felony ;  and  any  copyholder  refusing  to 
assist  in  repressing  it  forfeited  his  copyhold  for  life.  The 
same  penalty  was  attached  to  hunting  in  any  enclosure 
and  to  assembling  for  the  purpose  of  abating  rents  or 
the  price  of  corn  ;  but  the  prohibition  against  capitalists 
conspiring  to  raise  prices  was  repealed.  The  masses 
had  risen  against  the  classes,  and  the  classes  took  their 
revenge. 

This  must  be  borne  in  mind  when  we  try  to  account 
for  the  almost  grotesque  failure  of  Warwick's  plot  to 
place  Lady  Jane  Grey  on  the  throne.  His  govern- 
ment had  been  more  arbitrary  at  home  than  that  of 
Henry  VIII.,  and  feebler  abroad  than  that  of  Somerset. 
It  was  hated  as  much  by  Protestants  as  by  Catholics, 
and  it  was  Protestants  who  decided  the  issue  in  favour 
of  Queen  Mary.  But  the  fall  of  the  conspirators,  who 
had  ruined  Protector  Somerset  and  his  plans,  brought 
little  redress  to  the  peasants  ;  and  half  a  century  later 


SOCIAL  REVOLUTION  155 

a  sympathetic  divine  lamented  that  the  enclosure  move- 
ment had  turned  merry  England  into  sorrowful  or 
sighing  England.  Some  relief  came  by  weary  stages 
through  the  operation  of  natural  causes  ;  the  develop- 
ment of  home  manufactures  absorbed  a  certain  amount 
of  labour,  and  over-sea  enterprise  provided  occupation 
for  others.  Eventually  colonies  supplied  a  home  and 
subsistence  for  thousands  left  in  the  lurch  by  the 
economic  march  of  events  in  England.  But  only  the 
most  robust  belief  in  the  dogma,  that  whatever  has 
happened  has  been  for  the  best,  can  blind  us  to  the 
vast  iniquity  and  evil  of  the  divorce  of  the  peasant  • 
from  rights  in  the  land  which  he  occupies,  tills,  and 
makes  fruitful.  England  could  not  have  run  the  race 
for  national  wealth  in  the  shackles  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  perhaps  national  wealth  could  only  be  bought  by  the 
pauperisation  of  the  poor.  But,  if  absence  of  control 
means  that  the  weakest  goes  to  the  wall,  and  national 
prosperity  means  that  millions  must  hover  on  the  verge  of 
starvation,  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  question 
whether  the  product  is  worth  the  price,  whether  after 
all  the  feudal  system  was  so  very  much  worse  than 
the  present,  and  whether  the  social  revolution  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  a  very  great  step  in  the  progress 
of  man. 


156      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


VII 

POLITICAL   IDEAS  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH   AND 
SEVENTEENTH  CENTURIES 

It  used  to  be  said  by  an  eminent  professor  of  modern 
history  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  include  more  than  one 
definite  idea  in  a  single  lecture,  because  that  was  as 
much  as  the  average  audience  could  carry  away.  I 
have  paid  you  the  compliment  of  neglecting  this 
advice ;  but  most  people  find  it  very  difficult  to 
carry  away  more  than  one  idea  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  or  to  conceive  of  it  as  being  anything  except 
an  age  of  religion  and  theology.  Yet  the  political 
ideas  of  the  century  were  at  least  as  original  as  its 
theology,  and  a  great  deal  more  apparent  than  its 
religion.  It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  they  in- 
fluenced religion  more  than  they  were  influenced  by 
it;  but  both  factors  have  equally  to  be  taken  into 
our  account  of  the  time,  unless  that  account  is  to  be 
a  one-sided,  unveracious  affair.  If  religion  had  been 
the  supreme  and  only  test,  it  would  have  divided 
Europe  into  Catholic  and  Protestant  parties,  and  not 
into  Protestant  and  Catholic  nations.  The  sixteenth 
was  not  in  fact  so  religious  a  century  as  the  twelfth  or 
the  thirteenth  ;  there  was  no  crusade  ;  the  Armada,  the 


Political  ideas  157 

nearest  approach  to  one,  did  not  sail  until  Mary 
Stuart  had  bequeathed  to  Philip  ii.  her  claims  to  the 
English  throne,  and  Philip  would  never  have  embarked 
on  that  enterprise  for  the  sake  of  religion  alone.  It 
can  hardly  be  said  that  religion  was  the  sole  concern 
of  the  Queen  who  married  the  Protestant  Bothwell 
according  to  Protestant  rites.  Political  as  well  as 
religious  motives  played  their  part  on  the  European 
chess-board  ;  there  were  black  squares  as  well  as 
white  ;  and,  while  the  bishops  were  supposed  to  keep 
to  their  own  colour,  all  the  other  pieces — and  especially 
rival  queens  and  their  knights — might  move  upon 
either.  It  was  not  religion  which  fashioned  the 
Anglican  church  on  a  national,  the  Lutheran  church 
on  a  territorial,  and  the  Helvetic  churches  on  a 
congregational,  basis.  It  was  political  conditions 
which  effected  all  these  things ;  politics  had  much  to 
do  with  making  Germany  Protestant  and  keeping 
France  Catholic.  Impartial  observers  had  some 
difficulty  in  determining  whether  the  War  of  the 
Schmalkaldic  League  was,  or  was  not,  a  war  of  religion  ; 
and  one  of  the  French  wars  of  religion  was  also  called 
the  Lovers'  War.  Secularisation,  indeed,  seems  a 
much  more  striking  feature  of  the  century ;  religious 
orders  were  despoiled  and  not  endowed,  and  in  the 
wars  of  religion  there  was  more  war  than  there  was 
religion.  Heresy  was,  whenever  possible,  identified 
with  treason  ;  for  treason  was  more  unpopular  than 
heresy,  because  men  were  more  devoted  to  the  State 
than  to  the  Church.  Wyatt's  rebellion  enabled  Mary 
to  execute  heretics  on  the  plea  that  they  were  traitors  ; 


158      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

and  Elizabeth  boasted  that  she  did  not  persecute  for 
religion,  because  Campion  and  the  others  whom  she 
executed  were  disloyal  to  the  State. 

This  predominance  of  the  State  is  the  all-pervading 
political  idea  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  had  complex 
causes,  some  of  which  I  have  already  tried  to  trace. 
From  the  Renascence  point  of  view  its  parent  was 
Machiavelli,  who,  it  has  been  said,  released  the  State 
from  the  restraint  of  law.  He  only  committed  to 
paper,  and  made  a  theory  of,  the  practice  of  his  time  ; 
and  he  has  thousands  of  votaries  to-day  who  would 
indignantly  repudiate  his  name.  He  simply  pre- 
ferred efficiency  to  principle,  and  held,  in  the  language 
of  the  Twelve  Tables,  that  salus  populi  was  suprema 
lex.  Bismarck  and  Mazzini  thought  the  same  ;  tyran- 
nicide and  reasons  of  State  are  both  Machiavellian. 
The  republican  thought  the  tyrant  might  be  slaughtered 
for  the  common  good,  and  the  statesman  believed 
force  and  fraud  to  be  legitimate  means  of  serving  his 
country  ;  both  agreed  that  the  individual  might  be 
sacrificed  in  the  interests  of  the  State.  It  is  not  easy 
to  deny  the  proposition,  or  to  avoid  the  slippery  slope 
which  leads  towards  Machiavelli.  An  ambassador, 
said  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  is  an  honest  man  sent  to  lie 
abroad  for  his  country's  good.  A  diplomatist  who 
told  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  would  not  be  a  diplomatist,  except  on  the 
supposition  that  to  tell  the  truth  is  the  easiest  method 
of  deception,  because  the  truth  is  what  men  least 
expect.  But  nowadays  we  begin  to  limit  the  sins  one 
may  legitimately  commit  in  the  interests  of  the  State ; 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  159 

and  the  late  Lord  Acton  would  have  applied  to  States 
the  same  rigid  code  of  morals  which  we  commonly 
apply  to  individuals.     We  begin  to  perceive  that  the 
State  consists  only  of  individuals,  and  that  the  viola- 
tion of  individual  rights  and  individual  consciences  in 
the  interests   of  the   State   does   more   harm   to  the 
individuals  than  it  can  possibly  do  good  to  the  State. 
Machiavelli  and  his  models  were  less  squeamish;  in 
politics  a  blunder  was  worse  than  a  crime ;   success 
was  the  only  test  of  an  action  ;  expediency  was  more 
important    than     lawfulness;    the    end    justified    the 
means ;  and  the  end  was  always  the  good  of  the  State. 
All  this  is  pagan  enough ;  it  was  left  to  Luther  to 
sanctify  it,  and  to  claim  to  have  been  the  inventor  of 
the  divine  right  of  the  State.     The  claim  was  not  true, 
because  consciously  or  unconsciously  he  borrowed  it 
from  the   early  Fathers.     It   was  a  natural   reaction 
against  the  divine  right  of  the  Church,  and  part  of  the 
general  appeal  of  the  Reformation  from  the  Middle 
Ages   to   the   primitive   days   of    Christianity.      The 
Reformers  set  up  the  divine  right  of  the  State  against 
the  divine  right  of  the  Church ;  they  did  not  advance, 
as   is   often    supposed,   to    the   divine    right    of    the 
individual ;  we  have  scarcely  got  there  yet,  though  the 
conscientious  objector  is  making  the  effort  in  various 
spheres.     The   right  had   to  be  divine,  or  it  was  not 
much   use   in   the  ages  of  faith ;    for  men   had   less 
reluctance  then  than  now  to  saddle  Providence  with 
responsibility  for  their  own  creations.     All  legitimate 
institutions   were   regarded   as   of   divine   ordination. 
Once  divine  and  once  legitimate,  it  was  always  divine 


i6o      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

and  always  legitimate ;  there  was  no  idea  of  progress 
or  evolution,  and,  when  men  wanted  to  change  an 
institution,  they  had  to  allege  that  it  had  never  been 
legitimate.  Hence  all  the  talk  about  the  '  usurped ' 
authority  of  the  Pope  ;  it  was  abolished  in  England  on 
that  ground,  and  not  on  the  more  sensible  plea  that  it 
had  lost  its  savour,  and  become  incompatible  with 
national  development.  Providence,  it  was  maintained, 
had  never  sanctioned  the  Papacy ;  that  was  a  wicked 
invention  of  self-seeking  Popes.  But  Providence  had 
really  ordained  and  sanctioned  the  State;  the  King 
was  the  Lord's  Anointed  rather  than  the  Priest. 
Christ,  by  living  and  dying  under  the  laws  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  had  implicitly  recognised  its  authority 
and  explicitly  required  men  to  render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  were  Caesar's.  St.  Paul,  the  other  Apostles 
and  early  Fathers  continued  in  the  same  strain,  and 
men  invented  a  sort  of  Apostolic  succession  in  the 
State.  The  authority  thus  sanctioned  had  descended 
through  the  ages  to  the  emperors  and  kings  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Luther  saw  in  Charles  V.  the 
successor  of  Augustus  and  Constantine  the  Great,  and 
thought  resistance  was  a  sin.  When  circumstances 
induced  him  to  abandon  this  view,  he  transferred  the 
divine  sanction  to  his  territorial  sovereign,  the  Elector 
of  Saxony.  Englishmen  diverted  the  line  of  succes- 
sion from  the  Holy  Roman  emperors  to  their  own 
kings,  and  invented  a  legend  to  the  effect  that  Con- 
stantine the  Great  had  conferred  imperial  authority 
over  the  British  Isles  on  King  Arthur,  from  whom  it 
descended  to  Henry  viii.     Hence  the  King's  imperial 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  i6i 

talk ;  it  all  fitted  in  with  his  designs  on  Scotland  and 
Ireland  and  also  upon  the  Church,  for  there  was  no 
ecclesiastical  independence  under  the  Roman  and 
Byzantine  emperors,  whom  Henry  Vlii.  tried  to 
imitate.  His  ideas  were  perhaps  Byzantine  rather 
than  Roman,  for  it  was  at  Byzantium  that  the  depen- 
dence of  the  Church  was  carried  furthest  and  continued 
longest ;  and  it  was  at  Byzantium  that  the  absolutist 
maxims  of  the  Roman  civil  law  were  elaborated  in 
theory  and  put  into  practice. 

This  imperial  law  made  serious  inroads  upon  the 
common  law  of  England  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Upon  it  was  based  the  procedure  of  the  Court  of  the  Star 
Chamber,  the  Court  of  Requests,  the  equity  jurisdiction 
of  the  Chancery,  where  all  depended  upon  the  expert 
opinion  of  a  judge  and  nothing  on  the  common  sense 
of  a  jury.  It  was  the  foundation  of  the  Council  of  the 
North  and  of  the  Council  of  Wales  ;  *  if  we  do  nothing 
but  by  the  common  law,'  wrote  a  president  of  the 
latter,  *  it  will  be  long  ere  these  things  be  amended.' 
The  State  required  the  latitude  and  discretion  allowed 
it  by  the  civil  law,  and  emancipation  from  the  bonds 
of  common  law.  Henry  Vlii.  prohibited  the  canon 
law,  but  founded  regius  professorships  of  civil  law  at 
the  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge;  and  a 
doctorship  of  civil  law  is  still  the  highest  honorary 
degree  that  Oxford  can  bestow.  Protector  Somerset 
wanted  to  establish  a  college  at  Cambridge  devoted 
exclusively  to  the  study  of  civil  law  :  and  Tudor 
officials  were  nearly  all  civilians,  not  canonists  or 
common  lawyers.     Thomas  Cromwell  was  the  greatest 

L 


i62      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

advocate  of  this  system  ;  he  recommended  Pole  to 
study  Machiavelli,^  who,  according  to  Pole,  had 
poisoned  all  England,  and  would  poison  all  Christen- 
dom. Cromwell  paid  an  English  publisher  to  pro- 
duce a  translation  of  Marsiglio  of  Padua,  the  extremest 
champion  of  State  against  the  Church  in  the  Middle 
Ages ;  and  he  urged  Henry  VIII.  to  adopt  openly  the 
theory  that  the  Prince's  will  is  law.  It  is  one  of  the 
testimonies  to  Henry's  common  sense  that  he  preferred 
the  advice  of  Bishop  Gardiner,  who  said  it  was  safer  to 
make  the  law  his  will  than  to  make  his  will  the  law. 

There  is  no  more  striking  illustration  of  the  com- 
plete reversal  of  the  medieval  system  than  the  fact 
that  these  maxims  of  the  State  were  adopted  by  the 
Church.  Convocation  in  England  took  up  the  cry 
about  England  being  an  imperial  realm,  independent 
of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  and  dependent  upon  a  monarch 
who  was  at  once  Pope,  Emperor,  and  King  in  England. 
The  King  was  admitted  to  be  the  supreme  judge  in 
matters  of  faith,  and  the  *  King's  Doctrine '  was  used 
as  a  synonym  for  orthodoxy.  He  had,  it  was  main- 
tained, been  immediately  entrusted  by  God  with  the 
whole  governance  of  his  subjects  in  spiritual  as  well 
as  temporal  things.  Resistance  to  him  was  disobedi- 
ence to  God.  So  Cranmer  informed  the  western 
rebels  in  1549;  and  this  contention  produced  his 
own  difficulty  in  Mary's  reign.     He  had  unreservedly 


^  This  is  the  ordinary  interpretation  ;  but  see  Paul  Vandyke,  Renascenct 
Portraits,  1906,  App.,  where  he  gives  good  reason  for  believing  that  the 
book  recommended  by  Cromwell  to  Pole  was  not  Machiavelli's  Prince^ 
but  Castiglione's  Cotirtier, 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  163 

adopted  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of  the  State 
to  determine  all  things,  including  matters  of  faith. 
Now  in  Mary's  reign  the  State  decided  in  favour  of 
the  Papacy,  and  Cranmer  had  no  logical  ground  on 
which  to  withstand  the  decision  ;  he  had  never  ad- 
mitted the  divine  right  of  the  individual.  Hence  his 
recantations,  which  afford  so  easy  a  means  of  attack 
on  his  character.  In  justice  to  Cranmer  it  may  be 
remarked  that  no  one  has  yet  found  a  logical  answer 
to  the  dilemma  which  distressed  his  sensitive  mind. 
If  you  admit,  as  all  Anglicans  did  at  that  time,  the 
right  of  the  State  to  determine  the  national  religion, 
and  deny  the  right  of  the  individual  to  choose  his  own, 
what  are  you  going  to  do  when  the  State  establishes 
a  form  of  religion  repugnant  to  your  conscience? 
Either  your  convictions  or  your  conscience  must  go. 
Cranmer  doubted  between  the  two  ;  his  lifelong  con- 
victions at  first  proved  stronger  and  he  compromised 
with  his  conscience.  Then  his  conscience  triumphed, 
and  he  died  in  the  flames  with  peace  in  his  soul. 

The  divine  right  of  the  State  or  of  Kings — for  the 
two  came  to  much  the  same  thing  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  when,  in  the  phrase  attributed  to  Louis  XIV. 
but  invented  by  Voltaire,  the  State  was  the  King — 
became  orthodox  Anglican  doctrine  ;  and,  when  Puri- 
tans and  Parliament  began  to  attack  the  Church,  it 
had  urgent  reasons  for  putting  its  trust  in  princes. 
But  there  was  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between 
this  divine  right  and  the  divine  hereditary  right  pro- 
claimed by  James  I.  The  former  was  an  ancient  and 
a  comparatively  reasonable  idea  ;  the  latter  was  new- 


i64      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

fangled,  and  about  as  irrational  a  theory  as  was 
ever  invoked  to  misinterpret  history.  The  divine 
right  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  theological 
counterpart  of  the  Tudor  claim  to  the  throne ;  and 
that,  if  I  may  use  a  somewhat  contradictory  term,  was 
a  de  facto  theory,  and  not  a  de  jure  theory.  When  in 
1485  Parliament  recognised  Henry  vil.  as  king,  it 
admitted  a  fact  rather  than  a  right.  It  did  not  say  that 
he  ought  all  along  to  have  been  king :  it  merely  recog- 
nised the  fact  that  he  was  king.  And  you  may 
remember  that  another  statute  of  the  same  reign 
denied  that  obedience  to  a  de  facto  king  could  be 
treason.  That  is  the  keynote  of  the  Tudor  period  : 
the  title  of  the  Tudors  really  rested  on  their  ability  to 
govern,  and  not  upon  any  theory  of  hereditary  right. 
So  the  divine  right  of  that  age  simply  recognised  the 
divine  ordination  of  existing  authority,  without  pre- 
scribing the  way  in  which  that  authority  was  to  be 
chosen  ;  that  was  a  matter  for  Providence  and,  some- 
times, the  God  of  Battles. 

This  was  the  doctrine  asserted  in  the  canons  drawn 
up  by  Convocation  in  1606.  James  I.  soon  discovered 
a  flaw  ;  his  mind  was  acute,  and  he  was  conscious  that 
he  had  not,  like  the  Tudors,  established  his  throne  in 
the  hearts  of  his  people.  What,  he  asked  in  effect, 
would  they  do  if  some  one  treated  him  as  Henry  VII. 
had  treated  Richard  III.  ? — this  doctrine  of  theirs  would 
compel  them  to  recognise  and  obey  the  usurper  as 
divinely  ordained  a  de  facto  king.  That  was  a  horrible 
thought ;  for  he  was  king  de  jure  ;  not  all  the  water  in 
the  rough,  rude  sea  could  wash  the  balm  off  from  his 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  165 

anointed  head ;  not  all  the  canons  of  the  Church  or 
the  pikes  of  a  usurper  could  destroy  his  right  to  the 
Crown.  For  it  was  hereditary,  an  inalienable  right 
of  birth,  something  which  even  the  sovereign  himself 
could  not  destroy.^  Providence  had  not  only  ordained 
the  kings  that  be,  but  preordained  the  kings  that  ought 
to  be  ;  only  through  hereditary  right  could  divine  right 
descend:  that  was  the  divinely  selected  channel  of 
royal  prerogative.  This  theory  was  not  an  original 
discovery  by  James  I.,  though  it  was  he  who  introduced 
it  in  Great  Britain.  Henry  of  Navarre  had  asserted  a 
claim  to  the  throne  of  France  which  depended  solely 
on  hereditary  right,  against  even  greater  obstacles  than 
those  which  stood  in  the  way  of  James  I. ;  and  Stuart 
legitimists  derived  their  reasoning  from  Bodin  and  the 
Politiques  of  France. 

Now,  there  were  good  practical  reasons  why  James 
attached  so  extravagant  an  importance  to  hereditary 
right ;  for  that  was  his  only  title  to  the  throne,  and  it 
had  prevailed  over  almost  insuperable  obstacles.  The 
greatest  of  these  was  perhaps  the  inveterate  hatred 
between  English  and  Scots,  but  there  were  also  two 
legal  impediments.  By  both  common  law  and  statute 
law  James  was  debarred  from  the  English  throne. 
He  was  an  alien  ;  as  such  he  could  not  by  common 
law  inherit  one  foot  of  English  land  ;  still  less  could  he 
inherit  England.  By  statute  law  he  was  equally 
excluded ;    Henry   vill.'s    will    had    the    force    of    a 

^  This  also  became  the  French  monarchical  theory,  and  Louis  xiv. 
maintained  that  he  could  not,  if  he  wished,  deprive  the  Dauphin  of  his 
hereditary  right,  which  was  divine.  See  Torcy,  Memoires,  ed.  1850, 
pp.  710,  711. 


i66      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

statute,  and  had  been  confirmed  by  statute.  By  it 
the  descendants  of  Henry's  younger  sister,  Mary,  had 
been  preferred  in  the  line  of  succession  to  those  of 
his  elder  sister,  Margaret ;  and  so,  according  to  the 
law  of  the  land,  James  was  not  Elizabeth's  true  heir. 
He  was  only  so  by  hereditary  right,  and  hereditary 
right  was  not  the  law  of  the  land. 

Now,  the  real  reason  why  James  succeeded  in  spite 
of  these  obstacles  is,  of  course,  to  be  found  in  the 
practical  circumstances  of  1603.  The  descendant  of 
the  Suffolk  line.  Lord  Beauchamp,  was  an  impossible 
candidate  for  the  throne :  his  legitimacy  had  been 
officially  denied ;  his  personal  character  was  insigni- 
ficant ;  and  the  advantages  of  a  union  between  England 
and  Scotland  were  felt  to  outweigh  the  defects  in 
James's  claim.  But  the  king  himself  was  too  proud 
and  too  pedantic  to  owe  his  elevation  to  such  mundane 
and  transitory  considerations :  he  attributed  it  to  his 
hereditary  right,  which  he  erected  into  a  divine  dis- 
pensation and  dogma.  This  again  gives  the  keynote 
of  the  Stuart  period ;  the  dynasty  claimed  to  exist 
dejure,  not  de  facto.  The  Stuarts  pretended  that  their 
abstract  theory  overrode  all  the  practical  necessities  of 
government ;  that,  whatever  they  did,  they  were  kings 
by  unalterable  right.  Parliament  could  no  more  repeal 
their  divine  hereditary  right,  than  it  could  amend  the 
constitution  of  the  universe.  Fitness  to  rule,  con- 
formity to  the  national  will,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  matter.  Their  authority  was  something  above  the 
law ;  the  law  was  derived  from  it,  not  it  from  the  law. 
Theirs  was  the  divine,  the  only  right :  all  other  things. 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  167 

like  Parliamentary  privileges,  were  matters  of  grace 
which  had  been  granted,  and  might  be  revoked,  by  the 
Crown.  The  Stuart  policy  was  throughout  an  attempt 
to  force  the  English  constitution  into  the  narrow  com- 
pass of  this  abstract  system,  to  make  facts  conform  to 
fancies,  and  to  subordinate  government  to  a  theory.  It 
was  the  reverse  of  Tudor  policy,  which  had  always  con- 
sidered the  facts  and  left  the  theory  to  take  care  of 
itself;  the  Tudors  were  content  with  the  substance  of 
power,  the  Stuarts  pursued  its  shadow. 

This  corruption  of  the  Tudor  into  the  Stuart  theory, 
of  the  divine  right  of  kings  into  the  divine  hereditary 
right  of  kings,  ruined  the  Tudor  system  and  spoilt  the 
Tudor  theory,  for  which  originally  there  was  a  good 
deal  to  be  said.  Indeed,  the  ideas  which  underlay  it 
have  subsisted  to  this  day,  and  form  the  fundamental 
difference  between  the  English  and  Continental  con- 
stitutions. Starting  from  the  axiom  that  salus  populi 
is  suprema  lex^  and  assuming  that  government  is  the 
embodiment  of  the  State  and  the  expression  of  national 
unity,  political  thinkers  in  the  sixteenth  century 
deduced  the  idea  that  special  sanctions,  special  im- 
munities, privileges,  and  powers  are  required  to  protect 
the  State  and  its  servants.  The  common  law  could 
not  provide  for  all  contingencies;  a  wide  discretion 
must  be  granted  to  the  sovereign ;  he  must  in  cases 
of  necessity  dispense  with  common  law  and  make  use 
of  his  prerogative.  The  revival  of  the  Roman  civil 
law  coincided  with  this  tendency  of  thought ;  and  the 
various  prerogative  courts  were  practical  expressions 
of  the  idea.     The  function  of  the  Star  Chamber  was  to 


i68      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

deal  with  offenders  and  cases  with  which  the  common- 
law  courts  could  not  deal ;  the  Court  of  Requests 
administered  to  poor  men  a  justice  which  they  could 
not  obtain  elsewhere ;  the  Council  of  the  North  and  of 
Wales  reduced  to  order  turbulent  districts  which  had 
defied  ordinary  methods ;  Chancery  distributed  equity 
where  the  common  law  failed  to  provide  a  remedy. 
The  special  command  of  the  King  was  a  sufficient 
warrant  for  the  arrest  of  a  political  suspect,  whose  guilt 
was  known  to  the  government  but  could  not  be  stated 
in  public,  or  conveniently  proved  in  a  court  of  law. 

All  this  was  tolerated  so  long  as  it  was  done  in  the 
national  interests ;  but  the  system  became  intolerable 
when  it  was  administered  by  the  government,  not  on 
behalf  of  the  nation,  but  against  the  nation  on  behalf 
of  the  government.  It  was  only  practicable  so  long  as 
the  nation  consented,  and  the  nation  would  only  consent 
so  long  as  it  felt  the  need  of  special  protection  and 
agreed  with  the  policy  of  the  government.  This  condi- 
tion began  to  disappear  with  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish 
Armada,  and  from  that  date  the  influence  of  Roman 
civil  law,  and  of  the  ideas  of  prerogative  government, 
began  to  decline  in  England,  though  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  two  sets  of  ideas  fills  much  of  the  history  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  On  the  one  side  we  have 
Bacon,  Cowell,  Hobbes,  the  Chancery  lawyers,  and  the 
Stuarts;  on  the  other  we  have  Coke,  Selden,  Prynne, 
the  common  lawyers,  and  Parliament,  who  insisted  on 
the  supremacy  of  the  common  law,  and  sought  to 
restrict  the  operation  of  reasons  of  State  and  of  the 
prerogative  within  the  narrowest  possible  limits.    They 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  169 

denied  the  necessity  for  what  the  French  call  droit 
administratif  \  they  asserted  that  the  servants  of  the 
government  must  be  tried  by  ordinary  tribunals  even 
for  offences  committed  in  the  discharge  of  their  official 
duties ;  no  one  was  to  be  arrested  or  imprisoned  merely 
for  reasons  of  State;  there  must  be  a  definite  legal 
charge.  The  Crown  was  not  above  the  law ;  Parlia- 
mentary privileges  were  matters  of  right  and  not  of 
grace;  the  executive  must  be  controlled  by  the 
legislature,  the  popular  representative. 

The  struggle  was  of  world-wide  importance.  In 
1 610  Dr.  Cowell's  Interpreter,  a  book  which  asserted 
the  prerogative  in  its  most  aggressive  form,  was  burned 
by  the  common  hangman  at  the  order  of  Parliament. 
It  was  an  indication  of  the  coming  victory  of  the 
common  law.  A  year  before,  in  1609,  the  Virginia 
Company  had  been  founded,  and  ten  years  later  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  set  sail.  The  founders  of  England's 
colonial  empire  carried  over  the  seas  no  despotic 
maxims,  derived  from  the  Roman  civil  law  and  em- 
bodied in  Dr.  Cowell's  book,  no  ideas  of  the  exemption 
of  governments  from  the  ordinary  law  and  from  the 
control  of  Parliament.  They  took  with  them,  in  their 
hearts  and  minds,  the  principle  that  there  should  be 
but  one  law,  and  by  that  law  all  men  should  be 
governed ;  and  upon  that  foundation  a  hundred  legis- 
latures more  or  less  are  built  and  are  building  all  over 
the  world  to-day.  In  1619  elected  burgesses  met  at 
Jamestown  in  Virginia,  formed  the  first  legislative 
assembly  in  the  New  World,  and  the  first-born  child 
of  the  mother  of  Parliaments  saw  the  light.     Those 


I70      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

children  are  now  spread  over  the  earth,  and  every  one 
has  been  nurtured  and  fed  on  the  doctrine  that  the 
common  law  is  supreme  and  not  reasons  of  State  or 
the  will  of  the  Prince. 

That  characteristic  differentiates  the  English  con- 
stitution, and  those  based  upon  it,  from  nearly  all 
other  constitutions  in  the  world  ;  and  it  may  be  worth 
while  attempting  to  suggest  a  reason  for  this  singular 
phenomenon.  National  character  will  not  do  as  an 
explanation,  unless  no  better  can  be  found  ;  and  a 
better  can  be  found  in  environment.  Compare,  for 
instance,  the  circumstances  under  which  the  last  great 
constitutional  changes  took  place  in  France  and 
England.  I  refer  to  the  establishment  of  the  present 
French  Republic  in  1870,  and  the  establishment  of 
constitutional  monarchy  in  England  at  the  Revolution 
of  1688 ;  and  we  shall  see  how  those  circumstances 
dictated  one  sort  of  constitution  in  France  and  another 
sort  of  constitution  in  England.  In  1870-71  France 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  most  disastrous  war  it  has 
waged  in  modern  times.  German  forces  occupied  the 
greater  part  of  its  territory ;  the  capital  underwent  two 
sieges ;  the  Commune  established  a  reign  of  terror  in 
its  midst.  Enemies  from  without  devastated  and  dis- 
membered it ;  enemies  from  within  threatened  it  with 
domestic  revolution.  It  was  not  a  time  when  men 
were  likely  to  think  much  about  the  liberty  of  the 
subject  or  the  sovereignty  of  law.  National  existence 
was  at  stake ;  the  supreme  question  was  not  how  to 
guard  with  minute  and  scrupulous  care  the  rights  of 
the  individual  against  the  State,  but  how  to  save  the 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  171 

State  at  any  cost.  A  government  had  first  to  be 
organised  and  protected,  and  equipped  with  the  means 
for  crushing  anarchy,  before  the  individual  could  think 
of  liberty.  Reasons  of  State  had  to  prevail  over  indi- 
vidual rights,  and  the  government  of  France  was 
hedged  about  with  privileges,  prerogatives,  and  powers 
of  which  the  government  of  England  did  not  feel  the 
need. 

Very  different  were  the  circumstances  of  what  Burke 
loved  to  call  the  happy  and  glorious  Revolution 
of  1688.  The  supreme  question  then  was  not  how  to 
protect  England  from  invasion  or  from  anarchy,  but 
how  to  protect  the  liberty,  property,  and  religion  of 
English  subjects  against  the  attacks  of  an  arbitrary 
government.  It  was  not  the  State,  but  the  individual, 
that  was  in  danger.  There  was  no  need  to  surround 
the  government  with  special  safeguards,  to  protect  it 
by  administrative  privileges,  and  entrust  its  interests 
to  prerogative  courts.  And  so  the  prohibitions  are 
addressed  not  to  the  people,  but  to  the  sovereign; 
and  the  Bill  of  Rights  is  a  whole  Decalogue  of  com- 
mandments which  the  king  was  not  to  break.  In  this 
island  the  laws  were  not  drowned  amid  the  clash  of 
arms,  nor  individual  liberty  sacrificed  in  the  interests 
of  the  State.  The  simple  and  obvious  fact  that  Great 
Britain  is  an  island  has  woven  itself  in  a  thousand  ways 
into  the  texture  of  English  history.  If  in  England 
and  nowhere  else  freedom  has  slowly  broadened 
down  from  precedent  to  precedent,  it  is  because,  in 
Shakespeare's  phrase,  England  is  bound  in  with  the 
triumphant    sea,  because    Nature    had    defined    her 


172      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

frontiers  and  thus  relieved  her  of  the  greatest  of 
national  tasks ;  because,  in  working  out  her  career 
and  in  developing  her  constitution,  she  has  not  been 
hampered  and  beset  by  that  incessant  fear  of  foreign 
foes  which  has  interrupted  and  retarded  the  growth  of 
freedom  on  the  Continent. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  dealing  with  the  more 
practical  aspect  of  political  ideas,  with  that  side  of 
them  which  lies  nearest  to  actual  history.  But  it  is 
necessary  to  say  something  about  the  two  great 
writers  of  the  seventeenth  century  who  regarded 
these  questions  from  a  more  detached  and  philo- 
sophic point  of  view.  Of  these  two  Hobbes  is  the 
apologist  of  absolute  monarchy,  Locke  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1688.  But  Hobbes,  although  he  passed  nearly 
the  whole  of  his  life  in  the  Stuart  period,  is  really  the 
exponent  of  Tudor,  and  not  of  Stuart,  ideals.  He  was 
a  Freethinker,  and  there  was  little  divine  in  his  idea 
of  the  State ;  but  his  theory  approached  more  nearly 
the  divine  right  of  the  sixteenth,  than  the  divine 
hereditary  right  of  the  seventeenth,  century.  His 
sovereign,  while  absolute  in  theory,  must  be  effective 
in  practice ;  if  he  ceased  to  afford  his  subjects  protec- 
tion, they  might  throw  off  his  authority,  and  this 
passage  rendered  Hobbes  suspect  to  the  Cavaliers. 
The  Leviathan  was  written  during  the  Commonwealth 
and  Protectorate  ;  its  demand  for  a  de  facto  absolute 
sovereign  would  suit  Oliver  Cromwell  much  better 
than  the  King  over  the  Water,  who  had  nothing 
except  the  dejure  claim  of  heredity ;  and  Hobbes  was 
accused  of  trimming  his  sails  to  catch  the  Cromwellian 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  173 

breeze.  Another  point  about  Hobbes*s  sovereign 
roused  royalist  suspicion  ;  he  must  have  the  right  of 
appointing  his  successor :  that  was  the  essential  thing, 
but  the  successor  need  not  be  the  eldest  son,  and  divine 
hereditary  right  was  unceremoniously  thrown  over. 
Again,  Hobbes's  sovereign  might  be  an  assembly ;  he 
need  not  necessarily  be  a  monarch  ;  but  in  all  cases 
he  must  be  absolute. 

Hobbes's  demonstration  of  this  truth  is  his  greatest 
contribution  to  political  science,  and  it  has  been 
generally  accepted  in  modern  times.  It  is  the  philo- 
sophical expression  of  the  maturity  of  the  State  which 
had  grown  from  childish  weakness  into  theoretical 
omnicompetence ;  and  Hobbes  is  the  great  exponent 
of  the  idea,  of  which  Luther  and  Machiavelli  had  been 
the  god-parents.  We  do  not  to-day  regard  the  State 
as  divine  or  of  divine  ordination  ;  but  we  practically 
admit  that  its  authority  is  without  legal  limit.  There 
are  many  things  which  it  may  be  unwise  for  the  State 
to  do,  and  some  would  set  up  against  it  a  divine  right 
of  the  Church,  and  others  a  divine  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual ;  but  these  are  abstract  rights,  the  real  existence 
of  which  is  not  open  to  practical  demonstration.  A 
legal  right  is  the  only  right  which  can  be  legally 
enforced ;  and  legal  right  can  only  be  granted  and 
sanctioned  by  the  State,  which  can  make  anything 
legal  that  it  likes.  This  power  can  be  delegated,  but 
it  cannot  be  divided ;  no  other  authority  can  be 
admitted  as  co-ordinate  with  the  sovereign  State ; 
and  Hobbes  was  perfectly  right  in  pointing  out  the 
impossibility  of  dividing  sovereignty  between  Parlia- 


174      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

ment  and  the  King.  But  he  failed  to  anticipate  the 
modern  refinement  of  a  distinction  between  legal  and 
political  sovereignty.  In  Great  Britain  to-day  the 
legal  sovereign  is  Parliament,  the  political  sovereign  is 
the  electorate.  An  Act  of  Parliament  may  be  law  in 
defiance  of  all  the  electors ;  and  all  the  electors 
together  cannot  themselves  make  a  law.  But  they 
choose  their  legal  sovereign,  and  the  authority  of  that 
sovereign  is  absolute.  It  is  absolute  over  the  Church 
in  theory  if  not  in  practice,  and  Hobbes  was  especially 
severe  against  the  Puritans  who  revived  the  medieval 
idea  of  divine  right  of  the  Church.  Nor  had  individual 
conscience  any  rights  against  the  State ;  the  individual 
was  bound  to  obey  even  against  his  conscience,  and 
Hobbes  quoted  for  his  comfort  the  licence  granted  by 
Elisha  to  Naaman  to  bow  in  the  House  of  Rimmon. 
There  was  only  one  class  of  men  who  were  bound  to 
go  to  the  stake  rather  than  to  violate  conscience,  and 
that  was  the  clergy.  It  is  the  only  clerical  privilege 
that  Hobbes  was  prepared  to  grant. 

The  other  great  theory,  embedded  in  Hobbes's 
Leviathan^  is  that  the  State  is  founded  on  an  original 
contract  by  which  every  one  is  bound.  The  idea  was 
not  by  any  means  new :  it  had  been  used  both  in 
England  and  abroad  during  the  sixteenth  century. 
It  occurs  in  the  'judicious  Hooker';  it  was  adopted 
in  turn  by  the  Huguenots  and  by  the  Catholic  League 
in  France.  The  Huguenots  employed  it  to  limit  the 
authority  of  Catherine  de  Medicis  and  Henry  III. ;  the 
League  to  keep  out  Henry  IV.  According  to  them 
the  contract  was  threefold,  between  God,  King,  and 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  175 

People ;  a  breach  of  its  implied  terms  on  one  part 
absolved  the  others  from  their  obligations.  Henry  of 
Navarre  had  broken  the  contract  with  God  by  be- 
coming a  heretic  ;  therefore  the  Catholic  people,  with 
divine  concurrence,  might  elect  another  king,  a  Guise. 
In  spite  of  the  theological  ends  which  this  contract 
theory  was  made  to  serve,  it  seems  to  have  really  been 
an  unconscious  attempt  to  provide  a  more  rationalistic 
origin  for  the  State  than  that  of  divine  ordination. 

Hobbes,  at  any  rate,  had  no  theological  ends  to 
serve ;  and  his  idea  of  the  contract  differed  from  that 
of  his  predecessors.  They  had  conceived  a  contract 
between  sovereign  and  subjects,  binding  both  of  them. 
Hobbes  would  not  admit  that  the  sovereign  could  be 
bound  ;  the  contract,  he  said,  was  not  between  sovereign 
and  subjects,  but  between  all  individual  subjects  to 
make  a  sovereign.  The  people  simply  agreed  among 
themselves  to  set  up  an  absolute  sovereignty.  Hobbes 
explains  this  complete  surrender  of  their  liberties  by 
the  conditions  of  the  state  of  nature,  in  which  men 
lived  before  the  institution  of  civil  society.  The  state 
of  nature  is,  he  says,  a  state  of  war  in  which  every 
man's  hand  is  against  every  one  else's,  in  which  force 
and  fraud  are  the  two  cardinal  virtues,  and  in  which 
the  life  of  man  is  'solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish,  and 
short'  Men  in  fact  had  no  option  ;  they  were  in  no 
position  to  make  terms  with  the  sovereign.  Any 
means  of  escape  was  better  than  their  existing  con- 
dition ;  the  most  despotic  government  was  an  improve- 
ment on  anarchy.  There  is  some  truth  in  this  as  an 
account  of  the  abstract  idea  of  sovereignty,  though 


176      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

one  must  divest  it  of  the  accidental  characteristics  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  great  objection  to  it 
as  a  description  of  the  origin  of  the  State  is  that  it 
is  purely  unhistorical ;  there  never  was  any  contract 
at  all ;  at  no  time  did  men  meet  together  and  agree 
to  set  up  sovereignty.  Sovereignty  was  not  made, 
it  grew ;  like  the  State,  it  is  a  child  at  first,  and 
Hobbes's  idea  is  a  reflection  of  the  State  in  its  man- 
hood. Historically,  too,  we  know  that  in  primitive 
times  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  a  contract 
between  individuals,  for  the  individual  had  no  individu- 
ality ;  it  was  not  he,  but  the  family  or  the  tribe,  which 
was  the  unit  of  society ;  and  the  development  of  the 
individual  is  one  of  the  latest  growths  of  time. 

The  first  reply  to  Hobbes  did  not  come  from  Locke, 
the  apologist  of  the  Whigs,  but  from  Sir  Robert  Filmer, 
who  was  a  more  orthodox  Tory  of  the  Stuart  type 
than  Hobbes  himself;  and  in  his  Patriarcha  he  set 
himself  to  provide  a  political  theory  which  should  not 
be  capable  of  misinterpretation  in  the  interests  of  a 
Cromwell.  It  seems  at  first  sight  fantastic  in  the 
extreme.  Sovereignty  he  deduces  by  hereditary 
descent  from  Adam  and  the  Patriarchs,  whose  repre- 
sentatives the  Stuarts  were  in  Great  Britain.  But  there 
is  more  in  Filmer  than  appears  on  the  surface.  He 
perceives  the  unhistorical  character  of  the  contract 
theory,  and  tries  to  give  sovereignty  an  historical 
basi§,  although  his  history  is  had.  He  also  perceives 
how  both  the  theories  of  a  contract  and  of  absolute 
sovereignty  could  be  used  against  the  royalist  and 
Anglican  position  in  England.     There  was  a  funda- 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  177 

mental  agreement  between  the  Jesuit  and  the  Calvinist 
political  theory :  both  Parsons  and  Buchanan  had 
asserted  that  kings  might  be  deposed :  Calvin  and 
Bellarmine,  writes  Filmer,  both  look  asquint  this  way : 
and  the  only  protection  against  them  was  the  divine 
hereditary  right  of  James  I.  This  theory  had  in  fact 
been  adopted  by  the  royalists  and  the  Anglican 
Church,  and  it  was  their  belief  in  it  which  produced 
the  Nonjurors  of  William  III.  and  Mary's  reign. 
Anglican  divines  of  the  sixteenth  century  would  have 
had  no  difficulty  in  swearing  allegiance  to  a  de  facto 
king  like  William  III.  It  was  the  hereditary  taint, 
introduced  by  James  I.,  which  led  the  Church  to 
abandon  the  canons  of  1606  and  led  Sancroft  into 
difficulties. 

Locke's  two  Treatises  of  Civil  Government  were 
written  in  reply  to  Filmer,  but  he  feels  that  Hobbes 
is  the  more  serious  antagonist,  and  the  more  solid 
portions  of  the  book  deal  with  Hobbes's  theory.  Locke 
had  little  difficulty  in  dealing  with  Filmer's  history 
and  with  a  sovereignty  whose  title  was  derived  from 
Abraham.  But  in  order  to  meet  Hobbes,  he  abandons 
the  historical  argument  and  reverts  to  the  theory  of 
a  contract.  It  is  usually  said  that  Locke  supplied  the 
Whigs  of  1688  with  a  philosophical  basis  for  their 
action  at  the  Revolution  :  it  is  rather  a  philosophical 
apologia ;  for  the  Two  Treatises  were  not  published 
until  two  years  after  the  event,  in  1690.  This  circum- 
stance is  a  reminder  of  the  fact  that  political  philosophy 
is  not  generally  the  parent  of  political  action,  but  a 
deduction   from    the    accomplished   fact.      The    Two 

M 


178      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Treatises  are,  however,  an  embodiment  of  the  principles 
of  the  Revolution,  and  were  taken  as  a  refutation  and 
repudiation  of  the  Leviathan  of  Hobbes.  Locke  does 
not,  perhaps,  reject  the  theory  of  sovereignty  so  much 
as  readjust  the  habitat  of  that  sovereignty.  The  State 
was  just  as  omnicompetent  after  the  Revolution  as 
before ;  but  the  exercise  of  its  sovereignty  is  not  left 
at  the  uncontrolled  arbitrament  of  the  monarchy.  It 
is  entrusted  to  a  composite  entity ;  and  the  sovereign 
power  is  no  longer  the  king  alone,  but  the  King  in 
Parliament.  Hobbes  had  imagined  a  contract  by 
which  all  power  was  surrendered  into  the  hands  of  an 
external  authority;  Locke  imagined  a  contract  by 
which  certain  powers  were  delegated  to  the  monarch, 
while  others  were  to  be  exercised  conjointly  by  the 
monarch  and  a  representative  assembly.  Men  in  fact 
had  made  terms  with  the  sovereign,  who  was  bound  by 
those  terms.  They  were  not  in  the  parlous  condition 
fancied  by  Hobbes ;  the  state  of  nature  was  not  a  state 
of  war  ;  force  and  fraud  were  not  the  cardinal  virtues 
before  the  institution  of  civil  society.  Those  phrases 
only  described  the  condition  of  wicked  men  ;  but  men 
were  not  all  wicked  before  the  contract.  Morals  in 
fact  existed  before  politics,  and  were  not,  as  Hobbes 
seems  to  have  thought,  a  deduction  from  politics. 
Before  there  was  a  law  of  the  State,  there  was  a  law 
of  Nature  which  kept  men  from  the  orgies  imagined 
by  Hobbes.  Their  condition  was  tolerable,  they  could 
afford  to  bargain  with  the  sovereign,  and  set  limits  to 
his  authority.  The  contract  was  made  not  for  the 
sake  of  existence,  but  for  the  sake  of  a  better  existence, 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  179 

for  the  benefits  of  civil  society.  These  benefits  were 
endangered  by  absolute  monarchy  ;  the  Stuarts  had 
transgressed  the  original  terms  of  the  contract,  and 
usurped  more  than  their  allotted  share  of  power.  The 
people  were  justified,  therefore,  in  holding  themselves 
quit  of  their  engagement,  and  making  a  fresh  contract 
elsewhere. 

This  is  the  theory  of  the  English  Revolution,  but 
Locke  was  perhaps  less  important  as  its  apologist  than 
as  the  progenitor  of  Rousseau.  He  would  not  have 
recognised  his  progeny,  but  that  is  sometimes  the  case  : 
and  Rousseau  put  the  contract  theory  to  uses  which 
would  have  horrified  the  Whigs.  Hobbes  had  left 
sovereignty  entire  in  the  hands  of  the  monarch, 
Locke  associated  monarch  and  people  in  its  exercise, 
Rousseau  restored  it  all  to  the  people.  They  alone 
were  the  legitimate  wielders  of  sovereignty,  every 
other  sovereign  was  a  usurper.  Man  was  born  free, 
yet  everywhere  he  was  in  chains  because  the  people 
had  been  cheated  of  their  heritage  by  priests  and 
kings.  The  only  way  to  reform  the  world  was  to 
restore  the  sovereignty  of  the  people ;  and  on  that 
basis  the  French  Revolutionists  went  to  work. 

Rousseau  was  the  last  great  exponent  of  the  contract 
theory ;  indeed,  before  his  book  appeared,  the  bottom 
had  really  been  knocked  out  of  it  by  Montesquieu,  the 
parent  of  modern  historical  method  in  political  science. 
Nothing  could  have  been  less  historical  or  less  true 
than  Rousseau's  dogmas.  Man  is  not  born  free ;  he 
is  born  helpless,  and  freedom  is  of  little  use  to  the 
infant.      It  can    only  be  granted   him  gradually  in 


i8o      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

exceedingly  small  doses.  He  is  born  into  conditions 
which  determine  his  life ;  and  Montesquieu  sought  to 
trace  the  influence,  and  show  the  importance  of  environ- 
ment upon  the  development  of  man  and  his  institutions. 
He  rejected  the  abstract,  a  priori,  method  of  the  con- 
tractual school.  It  by  no  means  followed  that  the 
same  thing  was  true  or  beneficial  in  all  circumstances. 
Mankind  required  different  systems  in  different  circum- 
stances. Where  only  a  few  are  capable  of  rule,  the 
few  must  rule ;  democracy  is  only  possible  where  the 
many  have  attained  a  certain  degree  of  intelligence, 
self-knowledge,  and  self-control.  Climate  may  make 
all  the  difference ;  self-government  does  not  flourish 
in  the  tropics  ;  nor  tyranny  in  the  temperate  zones. 
Every  political  system  must  be  judged  with  reference 
to  its  circumstances  and  not  by  abstract  theories. 

These  are  the  contentions  of  the  historical  school, 
of  which  in  England  Sir  Henry  Maine  was  the  chief 
exponent.  He  applied  to  political  institutions  the 
same  kind  of  reasoning  that  Darwin  applied  to  the 
natural  world.  Gradual  evolution  and  not  sudden 
creation  was  the  history  of  both.  The  State  did  not 
originate  in  a  single  act,  a  contract ;  it  developed  from 
the  family  and  tribe.  Divine  right,  whether  of  the 
Church,  the  State,  or  the  individual,  and  abstract 
rights  derived  from  an  imaginary  secular  contract,  all 
disappeared  from  political  science,  though  not  from 
popular  politics.  States  and  constitutions  have  to 
stand  on  their  own  legs  without  the  support  of  abstract 
rights,  divine  or  other;  they  stand  or  they  fall  by 
their  adaptability  to  changing  needs,  and  the  idea  of 


POLITICAL  IDEAS  i8i 

development  has  supplanted  that  of  fixed  adherence 
to  a  prehistoric  type.  Theories  of  divine  right,  whether 
of  Churches,  or  States,  or  individuals,  have  happily 
failed  to  petrify  human  institutions,  and  have  all  given 
way  to  a  divine  law  of  progress.  The  one  immutable 
factor  in  human  affairs  is  their  infinite  mutability. 


i82       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


VIII 

CHURCH  AND  STATE  IN   ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND 

Of  all  the  factors  which  have  contributed  to  the 
making  of  the  British  Empire,  none  is  more  important 
than  the  Union  between  England  and  Scotland.  It  is 
difficult  to  imagine  what  the  empire  would  be  like 
without  its  Scottish  ingredients ;  and  it  is  a  common- 
place, that  wherever  in  the  British  dominions  there 
is  a  good  thing,  there  you  will  find  a  Scot  not  very  far 
off.  Scots  not  only  govern  themselves,  but  others  as 
well ;  no  one  ever  dreams  of  making  anybody  but 
a  Scot  Secretary  of  State  for  Scotland  ;  and  soon,  it 
would  seem,  no  one  but  a  Scot  need  apply  for  the  post 
of  Prime  Minister  ;  the  present  Premier  and  both  the 
living  ex-Premiers  are  Scots.  Independence  offers  as 
few  attractions  to  the  Scots  as  the  Zionist  ideal  does 
to  most  of  the  Jews ;  for  it  is  poor  sport  ruling  and 
financing  yourselves  when  you  can  rule  and  finance 
other  people. 

But  the  mutual  affection  between  English  and  Scots 
is  of  modern  growth.  During  the  two  centuries  with 
which  we  are  dealing  the  blood- relationship  between 
the  two  races  showed  itself  in  a  somewhat  sanguinary 
fashion  ;   and  English  and   Scots  fought  face  to  face, 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     183 

and  not  side  by  side,  on  the  field  of  battle.  Protector 
Somerset  had  the  right  object  in  view  when  he 
spoke  of  a  united  realm  which,  having  the  sea  for  its 
wall,  mutual  love  for  its  garrison,  and  God  for  its 
defence,  need  not  in  peace  be  ashamed,  or  in  war 
afraid  of  any  worldly  power ;  and  he  had  some  notion 
of  how  these  things  were  to  be  achieved  when  he  said 
that  the  way  was,  not  to  win  by  force  but  to  conciliate 
by  love,  to  leave  Scotland  her  own  laws  and  customs, 
to  establish  free  trade,  to  abolish  the  distinction  of 
aliens  between  the  two  kingdoms,  and  to  call  the 
united  realm  the  Empire  of  Great  Britain.  But  even 
he  fought  the  battle  of  Pinkie,  and  Pinkie  is  but  one 
link  in  the  chain  which  stretches  from  Flodden  Field 
to  Culloden  Moor.  Solway  Moss,  Dunbar,  Killie- 
crankie,  Sheriffmuir,  and  Prestonpans  seemed  to  show 
that,  whether  England  was  ruled  by  Tudor  King  or  by 
homespun  Protector,  by  Dutch  William  or  by  German 
George,  she  would  find  insuperable  antipathies  north 
of  the  Tweed,  or  at  least  of  the  Forth. 

This  antipathy  has  been  ascribed  to  a  variety  of 
causes,  ranging  from  an  inherent  and  mutual  repug- 
nance between  Saxon  and  Gael  to  the  effects  of  a 
single  battle.  One  writer  attributes  to  Pinkie,  not 
only  such  immediate  results  as  the  revival  of  French 
influence  in  Scotland  and  the  marriage  of  Mary  Stuart 
to  the  Dauphin,  but  comprehensive  phenomena  like 
the  divergence  between  the  English  and  the  Scottish 
Reformations,  the  refusal  of  both  realms  to  complete 
the  Union  in  1603,  and  the  hatreds  which  found 
expression   in   Dunbar  and   Worcester.     It   is   rather 


i84      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

a  long  list  of  fatalities  to  follow  a  single  battle,  but 
even  greater  results  have  been  put  down  to  the  fact 
that  Cleopatra's  nose  was  of  just  the  right  length  to 
fascinate  Julius  Caesar  and  Mark  Antony.  Flodden 
Field  and  Solway  Moss  might  perhaps  have  done  as 
well  as  Pinkie,  but  for  the  fact  that  Somerset's  states- 
manship is  a  more  conventional  mark  for  critical 
arrows  than  that  of  Henry  Vlli. ;  and,  in  any  case,  this 
kind  of  criticism  mistakes  the  occasion  for  the  cause 
and  the  cause  for  the  effect.  The  divergence  of  the 
English  and  Scottish  Reformations  and  the  failure  of 
the  attempted  union  in  1603  were  due  to  causes  which 
went  a  great  deal  deeper  than  any  single  battle  or 
series  of  campaigns. 

To  sum  up  this  divergence,  it  may  be  said  that 
England  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  Erastian, 
while  Scotland  was  theocratic ;  and  my  object  at  this 
moment  is  to  explain  and  illustrate  this  statement. 
Now,  Erastianism  is  a  vague  word  with  many  mean- 
ings ;  it  is  derived  from  a  German  doctor  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  Thomas  Lieber,  whose  name,  like 
that  of  Melanchthon  and  a  host  of  others,  was 
translated  into  a  Greek  form,  Erastus.  His  view  was 
that  the  State,  and  not  the  Church,  should  exercise 
coercive  jurisdiction.  But  it  has  been  denied  that 
Erastus  was  Erastian,  just  as  it  may  be  maintained 
that  Machiavelli  was  not  really  Machiavellian  ;  and  the 
modern  use  of  the  word  seems  to  imply  a  right  on  the 
part  of  the  State  to  set  up  any  creed  it  likes  and 
compel  its  subjects  to  acknowledge  it.  Erastus  him- 
self died  in  exile  rather  than  admit  this ;    and  modern 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     185 

Erastianism  is  rather  the  poh'cy  adopted  by  Henry  VIII. 
and  expounded  by  Thomas  Hobbes.  Without  attempt- 
ing any  exact  definition,  we  may  perhaps  say  that  a 
country  is  Erastian  where  the  State,  and  theocratic 
where  the  Church,  is  the  predominant  partner. 

Now  in  England  in  the  sixteenth  century  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  State  is  the  predominant  partner.  The 
Reformation  is  a  naked  and  brutal  assertion  of  that 
fact,  which  no  amount  of  ingenuity  can  explain  away. 
It  was  forced  on  the  Church  and  against  its  will  by 
the  State,  and  it  was  not  till  late  in  Elizabeth's  reign 
that  the  Church  accorded  a  conscientious  assent  to 
a  settlement  extorted  from  it  by  force.  In  Henry 
viii.'s  reign  the  pretence  of  consulting  the  Church 
through  Convocation  and  the  pretence  of  electing 
Bishops  by  Chapters  were  kept  up.  But  Chapters 
had  to  elect  the  royal  nominee  within  twelve  days 
under  pain  oi  praemunire.  Even  the  taxes  the  Church 
imposed  on  itself  could  not  be  collected  till  Parlia- 
ment gave  its  consent.  The  only  check  which  Henry 
experienced  from  Convocation  was  when  it  inserted  the 
qualifying  phrase  so  far  as  the  law  of  Christ  allows  in 
its  recognition  of  the  royal  supremacy,  and  this  has 
been  represented  as  an  act  of  courage.  It  was  no  more 
than  a  feeble  effort  of  Convocation  to  save  its  face, 
and  the  Imperial  ambassador  pointed  out  that  no  one 
would  venture  to  dispute  with  Henry  as  to  where  his 
supremacy  ended  and  that  of  Christ  began.  Even 
these  pretences  were  abandoned  in  Edward's  reign, 
when  Bishops  were  appointed  merely  by  Royal  Letters 
Patent,   and   when    books   of  Common    Prayer  were 


i86      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

enacted  without  reference  to  Convocation.  *  Parliament 
establisheth  forms  of  religion/  says  Sir  Thomas  Smith, 
who  was  Dean  of  Carlisle  as  well  as  Secretary  of  State ; 
and  it  was  Parliament  alone  which  gave  legal  sanction 
to  the  Elizabethan  settlement. 

Now  the  question  we  have  to  solve  is,  How  came  it 
to  be  possible  to  treat  the  Church  in  this  cavalier 
fashion  ?  In  other  words,  why  was  Parliament  so 
much  stronger  than  Convocation?  The  answer  is 
that  Parliament  represented  the  feelings  of  the  pre- 
dominant middle  classes  and  Convocation  represented 
only  the  clergy ;  it  did  not  even  represent  the  Church 
in  our  modern  sense  of  the  word.  Nowadays  we 
speak  of  a  Churchman  in  distinction  to  any  kind  of 
nonconformist,  and  the  Church  party  includes  a  number 
of  eminent  laymen.  In  those  days  no  layman  could 
be  described  as  a  Churchman ;  the  Churchman  was 
always  an  ecclesiastic,  and  only  such  were  represented 
in  Convocation  ;  the  rest  of  the  people,  who  all  belonged 
to  the  Church,  were  represented  by  Parliament.  Con- 
vocation was  thus  the  organ  of  a  class,  almost  a 
privileged  caste,  whose  privileges  existed  at  the 
expense  of  the  laity  ;  and  thus  it  could  not  be  the 
organ  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  Nevertheless,  this 
privileged  class  had  been  able  to  hold  most  of  what  it 
called  its  own  throughout  the  greater  part  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  because  it  had  represented  all  the  educa- 
tion and  almost  all  the  intelligence  and  the  enthusiasm 
of  that  time.  That  was  no  longer  the  case ;  enthusiasm 
had  largely  forsaken  the  Church  ;  education  was  no 
longer  its  speciality;   intelligence  had  spread  to  the 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     187 

middle  and  upper  class  laity ;  and  even  piety  had 
ceased  to  be  mainly  professional.  The  solid  founda- 
tions upon  which  clerical  power  and  privilege  had 
been  based  had  disappeared,  and  with  them  went  the 
acquiescence  of  men  in  clerical  guidance  and  governance, 
in  clerical  pride  and  prerogative. 

The  monopoly  of  the  Church  had  broken  down  long 
before  the  sixteenth  century;  but  for  that  fact,  the 
Reformation  would  not  have  been  possible.  The  laity 
had  invaded  the  professions  ;  they  had  learned  to  read, 
to  write,  and  to  think.  The  greatest  educator  in  the 
fifteenth  century  was  Caxton,  and  the  printing-press 
was  no  respecter  of  parsons;  the  greatest  writer  of 
English  prose  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  layman, 
Sir  Thomas  More  ;  and  the  only  clerical  poet  of  note 
was  the  scandalous  Skelton.  The  new  forces  of  com- 
merce, industry,  and  geographical  discovery  were  in 
the  hands  of  the  laymen ;  and  the  enthusiasm  was 
patriotism,  a  national  spirit  unsympathetic  to  cosmo- 
politan clericalism.  Of  this  new  public  opinion 
Parliament  was  the  focus  and  the  voice.  It  repre- 
sented a  national  feeling  which  had  not  existed  before, 
although  this  representation  was  for  a  time  concealed 
by  the  predominance  of  the  monarchy  and  the  union 
between  King  and  Parliament.  The  alliance  of  these 
two  representatives  of  the  State  was  irresistible  by  the 
enfeebled  Church.  Hence  Parliament  prevails  over 
Convocation,  State  over  Church,  and  England  becomes 
Erastian. 

In   Scotland   the  situation  was   curiously  reversed. 
Parliament  was  weak,  and  the  Church,  as  reformed  by 


i88       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

John  Knox  and  Melville,  was  strong.  To  explain  the 
weakness  of  the  Scottish  Parliament,  we  should  have 
to  go  far  back  into  the  Middle  Ages  and  into  some 
intricate  questions  of  legal  and  constitutional  history. 
We  can  only  indicate  one  or  two  points.  Scotland  did 
not  achieve  internal  unity  so  soon  as  England  ;  she  had 
no  Henry  II.  to  create  a  native  common  law  strong 
enough  to  resist  the  inroads  of  the  Roman  law ;  and 
the  victory  of  Roman  law  across  the  Border  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  divergence  between  the  present 
English  and  Scottish  legal  systems.  This  lack  of 
common  law  was  inimical  to  Parliamentary  develop- 
ment ;  and  Parliament  in  Scotland  was  only  a  system 
of  Estates  similar  to  those  which  sank  into  impotence 
on  the  Continent.  There  was  no  shire  representation 
as  in  England,  and  only  tenants-in-chief  could  exercise 
the  vote  :  the  freeholder,  that  backbone  of  the  English 
Parliament,  was  unknown ;  and  there  was  no  co- 
operation between  the  various  social  classes.  The 
boroughs  stood  alone,  and  only  boroughs  on  the  royal 
demesne  were  represented  at  all.  Legislation  was 
enacted  by  the  Privy  Council  and  not  by  the  Estates. 
It  was  a  mere  simulacrum  of  a  Parliament ;  and,  when 
it  met,  it  delegated  its  functions  to  a  committee  or 
clique  known  as  the  Lords  of  the  Articles.  No  strong 
monarchy  had  fashioned  this  feudal  assembly  into  a 
modern  Parliament ;  a  series  of  infant  kings  and 
disputed  regencies  had  prolonged  the  feudal  agony 
into  the  sixteenth  century,  and  Ruthven  raids  and 
Gowrie  plots  were  still  the  custom  of  the  country. 
Kings    are    kidnapped    as    of  old,   and   'bands'    are 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND  189 

formed  against  a  Queen,  though  the  feudal  *  band ' 
has  been  converted,  and  calls  itself  a  Covenant.  We 
hear  much  of  these  things,  but  little  enough  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  for  Parliament  is  weak,  and  is  no  organ  or  no 
trumpet  on  which  a  middle  class  can  play. 

The  ultimate  reason,  of  course,  was  that  Scotland  had 
no  middle  class  requiring  an  organ  to  express  or  to  re- 
lieve its  feelings.  Scotland  had  been  poor  and  pastoral : 
only  industry  and  commerce  can  make  a  Parliament. 
When  Russia  has  a  middle  class  proportionate  to  its 
size  and  population,  it  will  also  have  a  Duma  which 
will  not  be  dismissed.  But  Scotland  in  the  sixteenth 
century  was  developing  a  trade,  and  consequently  a 
middle  class.  'During  no  previous  period,*  says  a 
Scottish  historian, '  had  the  Scottish  people  taken  such 
a  forward  stride  at  once  in  material  well-being  and 
political  importance.  Mary's  reign  saw  the  end  of 
feudalism  in  Scotland  and  the  appearance  of  a  middle 
class,  which  was  thenceforward  to  determine  the 
development  of  the  country.  It  is  the  sensational 
events  of  Mary's  reign  that  have  drawn  attention  to  it 
beyond  every  reign  in  Scottish  history;  but,  in  truth, 
its  highest  interest  and  importance  lie  in  this  trans- 
ference of  moral  and  political  force  from  the  nobles  to 
the  people.'  Scotland,  like  England,  was  achieving 
national  consciousness  with  the  progress  of  its  people 
in  wealth  and  education  ;  and  this  new  national  feeling 
was  trying  to  find  a  voice  and  clamouring  to  be  heard. 

Parliament  did  not  and  could  not  respond:  some 
other  organ  had  to  be  provided,  some  other  vehicle  and 
outlet  for  public  opinion.    It  was  found  in  the  Assembly 


I90      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

of  the  Presbyterian  Church  ;  it  is  there,  and  not  in  what 
has  been  called  '  the  blighted  and  stunted  conclave  of 
the  three  Estates/  that  you  hear  the  voice  of  Scotland 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  There  you 
have  the  secret  of  the  strength  of  the  Church  in  Scot- 
land. The  Church  had  reformed  itself  in  spite  of  the 
State :  it  had  not  been  reformed  by  the  State  in  spite 
of  itself;  the  reformer  in  Scotland  is  a  minister  of 
religion  and  not  a  minister  of  State,  a  John  Knox 
and  not  a  Thomas  Cromwell.  The  Reformation  was 
adopted  by  the  Church  in  Scotland  as  a  matter  of  faith 
and  conviction,  not  one  of  convenience  and  submission 
to  the  monarch.  The  wrath  of  the  King  might  mean 
death  in  Edinburgh  as  well  as  in  London,  but  John 
Knox  never  used  that  plea  of  Warham's.  *  Here  lies 
one,'  said  the  Regent  Morton  at  Knox's  grave,  *  who 
never  feared  the  face  of  man ' ;  and  there  was  no  hang- 
dog look  of  defeat  and  a  conscience  ill  at  ease  among 
the  new  presbyters  of  Scotland.  The  Kirk  could  hold 
up  its  head  in  a  fashion  impossible  for  ecclesiastics  who 
accepted  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI.,  Mary  and  Elizabeth 
in  turn  as  orthodox  defenders  of  the  faith,  and  who 
did  not  know  whether  to  call  themselves  Protestants 
or  Catholics.  '  Throughout  all  the  troubles  of  that 
anxious  time,'  a  modern  high  Churchman  has  written 
of  a  Tudor  turncoat,  '  he  remained  unswerving  in  his 
fidelity  to  the  national  religion.'  The  Vicar  of  Bray, 
you  may  remember,  was  equally  staunch  to  the  national 
religion.  That  sort  of  fidelity  was  rare  in  Scotland, 
and  the  Church  had  the  strength  of  its  convictions  and 
the  consciousness  of  the  national  support.     It  reaped 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     '  191 

the  reward  of  its  boldness :  it  did  not  halt  between  two 
opinions  ;  it  directed  the  whirlwind  and  rode  the  storm 
of  religious  revolution.  The  Reformation  in  Scotland 
is  the  triumph  of  the  Church ;  and  the  Church  is  vastly 
stronger  after  than  before  the  change,  because  it  made 
itself  the  mouthpiece  of  the  nation,  and  fulfilled  a 
function  abandoned  by  the  Parliament. 

That  is  not  the  only,  or,  perhaps,  the  most  essential 
point.  The  great  cause  of  the  weakness  of  Convoca- 
tion in  England  was  its  exclusively  ecclesiastical 
composition ;  it  was  a  conclave,  in  which  the  laity 
had  no  part  nor  lot.  The  Kirk  in  Scotland  avoided 
that  mistake ;  its  assemblies  were  not  composed  of 
ministers  alone.  In  the  kirk-sessions  of  the  parish, 
in  the  presbyteries,  in  the  General  Assembly  itself, 
laymen  sat  side  by  side  with  ministers  as  deacons  or 
lay-elders.  In  the  gatherings  of  the  Kirk,  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  grades,  the  Scottish  layman 
found  a  sphere  of  activity  and  self-government,  which 
was  denied  him  in  the  Scottish  Parliament. 

Hence  Scotland  becomes  theocratic  and  not  Erastian. 
The  voice  of  the  people  sounds  through  an  ecclesi- 
astical, and  not  a  secular,  organ;  and  every  popular 
movement  in  Scotland  takes  an  ecclesiastical  colour. 
Is  a  popular  protest  to  be  made?  It  does  not  take 
the  form  of  a  Grand  Remonstrance  or  a  Petition  of 
Right,  but  of  a  National  League  and  Covenant.  Is 
a  tyrant  to  be  murdered?  The  victim  will  be  an 
Archbishop  Sharp  and  not  a  Duke  of  Buckingham. 
Are  guarantees  to  be  extracted  from  a  King? 
Charles  ll.  will  have  to  sign  the  Covenant  in  Scotland, 


192      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

while  William  III.  accepts  the  Declaration  of  Right 
in  England.  Instead  of  a  Speaker  being  held  in  his 
chair  in  a  House  of  Commons  at  Westminster,  a  stool 
will  be  hurled  at  a  preacher  in  St.  Giles',  Edinburgh. 
Scotland  calls  its  civil  wars  the  first  and  second 
Bishops'  Wars ;  its  revolts  are  Covenanting  raids,  and 
even  its  generals  are  sometimes  preachers :  it  was 
they  who  appealed  to  the  God  of  Battles  at  Dunbar 
and  ruined  the  campaign. 

The  real  Parliament  of  Scotland  is  the  Congrega- 
tion, and  its  real  platform  is  the  pulpit.  Scotland  is 
more  anxious  for  the  freedom  of  the  pulpit  than  for 
privilege  of  Parliament.  While  Peter  and  Paul  Went- 
worth  were  fighting  for  freedom  of  speech  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  Andrew  Melville  was  claiming 
in  1584  that  a  seditious  harangue  was  privileged 
because  it  had  been  delivered  from  the  pulpit ;  and 
in  1596  the  ministers  laid  down  the  principle  that  in 
the  pulpit  they  were  free  to  say  what  they  pleased. 
Privilege  was  needed  to  combat  the  divine  right  of 
kings  just  as  much  in  Scotland  as  south  of  the 
Border ;  for  James  vi.'s  pretensions  were  as  high  as 
those  of  James  I.,  and  he  was  less  controlled  by  the 
Roman  law  of  Scotland  than  by  the  common  law 
of  England.  Parliament  in  Scotland  was  unequally 
matched  with  the  King,  and  Scottish  servility  was 
concentrated  in  the  three  Estates.  Divine  right  of 
kings  is  opposed  in  Scotland,  not  by  common  law  and 
Parliamentary  privilege,  but  by  divine  right  of  the 
Church.  The  opponents  of  the  Crown  are  not  Parlia- 
mentarians like  Pym  or  common  lawyers  like  Coke, 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND  193 

but    Presbyterian   ministers    like   Melville  and    John 
Knox. 

And  here  we  come  across  one  of  the  singularities 
of  the  Scottish  Reformation.  While  the  Scottish 
Church  assimilated  Calvinistic  dogma  and  adopted 
the  extremest  possible  antipathy  to  Roman  ritual 
and  doctrine,  it  took  up,  in  its  relations  with  the 
State,  the  identical  position  which  the  Papacy  had 
assumed  from  the  eleventh  century  onwards.  Melville 
talks  of  the  two  kingdoms,  Church  and  State,  in 
language  which  might  have  been  borrowed  from 
Hildebrand :  the  Church  was  a  visible  kingdom,  the 
rival  if  not  the  superior  of  the  State.  Another  minister 
threatens  James  with  the  fate  of  Jeroboam,  just  as 
popes  threatened  kings  with  the  fate  of  Nero,  Senna- 
cherib, and  any  other  monarch  who  happened  to  have 
come  to  an  evil  end.  Melville  told  James  to  his  face 
that  he  was  but  '  God's  silly  vassal.'  Kings  might 
be  deposed  for  their  sins  by  the  people.  '  Cardinal 
Bellarmine  and  Calvin,'  says  Filmer, '  both  look  asquint 
this  way ' ;  and  one  Scottish  minister  took  it  upon 
himself  to  excommunicate  Charles  II.  by  his  own 
authority.  The  second  Book  of  Discipline  asserted 
that  the  civil  magistrate  ought  to  *hear  and  obey' 
the  voice  of  the  minister ;  the  Church  claimed  the 
right  of  inflicting  penalties  and  of  demanding  that 
the  State  should  carry  them  out ;  just  as  in  medieval 
times  the  ecclesiastical  courts  had  condemned  men  to 
the  fire  and  handed  them  over  to  the  secular  arm  to 
be  burnt.  *  New  Presbyter,'  says  Milton,  *  is  but  old 
priest  writ  large.' 

N 


194      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

This  is  the  fundamental  antagonism  between  Eng- 
land and  Scotland  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  Against  this  theory  of  dual  control  of 
Church  and  State,  against  these  claims  to  a  coercive 
jurisdiction  exercised  by  the  clergy,  the  English 
Reformation  was  a  protest.  The  men  who  supported 
Henry  vili.  had  no  idea  of  toleration,  and  no  hatred 
of  persecution  in  itself;  but  they  wanted  the  persecu- 
tion done  by  the  State  and  not  by  the  Church,  and 
they  would  tolerate  no  divided  authority,  no  organisa- 
tion competing  with  the  State  for  men's  allegiance. 
On  this  issue  the  Pope  and  Calvin  were  at  one  against 
Luther,  Erastus,  and  Cranmer,  not  to  speak  of  Machia- 
velli,  Filmer,  and  Hobbes ;  and  to  this  antagonism 
between  Protestants  is  largely  due  the  success  of  the 
Counter  Reformation.  That  is  why  we  find  Lutherans 
preferring  to  fight  for  Catholics  in  France  against 
Calvinist  Huguenots ;  it  is  why  Presbyterian  and  In- 
dependent fight  one  another  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester. 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  Reformation  in  Scotland 
was  a  reaction  to  medieval  ideas  against  the  modern 
conception  of  the  State.  It  was  not  permanent,  and 
even  the  Papacy  has  implicitly  abandoned  its  medieval 
position.  The  Pope  no  longer  tries  to  deprive  heretics 
of  their  thrones ;  he  merely  defines  the  faith.  From 
being  lord  of  lords  he  has  become  merely  a  teacher 
of  teachers.  The  Church  has  ceased  to  trespass  on 
secular  domains,  and  has  retired  for  the  most  part  into 
its  more  proper  spiritual  sphere.  So,  too,  Presbyterian 
ministers  do  not  as  a  rule  resort  to  excommunica- 
tion, nor  expect  the  State  to  execute  their  judgments. 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND  195 

But,  while  these  pretensions  lasted,  they  caused  much 
friction  between  the  sister-kingdoms,  which  might  have 
been  avoided  had  Scotland  found  a  secular  voice  in  her 
Parliament  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  something  to  be  said. 
However  highly  we  estimate  the  courage  and  tenacity 
of  the  English  Parliament  in  resisting  the  divine  right 
of  kings,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  Kirk  was  not 
a  more  stubborn  obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  Stuarts ; 
and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  that  divine  right  could 
have  been  overthrown  in  England  in  the  seventeenth 
century  without  the  help  of  the  Scots  and  their  divine 
right  of  the  Church.  Charles  I.'s  eleven  years'  tyranny 
might  have  gone  on  indefinitely,  but  for  the  need  of 
money  to  maintain  an  army  against  the  Scots.  The 
financial  expedients  of  Noy  and  his  colleagues  sufficed 
for  the  King's  ordinary  needs,  and  it  was  the  Scots 
who  compelled  him  to  summon  the  Short  and  then  the 
Long  Parliament.  The  Scottish  Kirk  had  struck 
before  the  English  Parliament,  and  divine  right  re- 
belled before  the  common  law. 

Even  in  England  itself  the  backbone  of  resistance  to 
the  Stuarts  was  ecclesiastical.  Laud  was  brought  to 
the  block  as  well  as  Strafford  and  Charles  I. ;  and 
Parliament  would  not  have  been  either  so  determined 
or  so  ferocious,  had  it  not  also  been  Puritan  and 
Presbyterian.  The  old  priest  writ  large  was  not  con- 
fined to  Scotland ;  his  voice  was  heard  in  the  mouth 
of  Cartwright,  Travers,  and  Wilcox,  though  their  note 
is  not  so  clear  as  that  of  Knox  and  Melville.  They 
were  Puritan  rather  than  Presbyterian ;  and,  in  spite 


196      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

of  their  theological  views,  they  could  not  escape  the 
national  atmosphere.  Parliament  was  more  to  them 
than  it  was  to  the  Scots,  and  the  divine  right  of  the 
Church  was  less.  They  were  ready  enough  to  appeal 
to  Parliament  to  establish  their  religion,  and  said  more 
about  the  Popery  of  the  Church  than  about  its  in- 
dependence. The  reason  was  that  they  had  expecta- 
tions from  Parliament,  which  Knox  and  Melville  had 
not  from  the  Scottish  Estates.  The  English  Parliament 
reflected  national  sentiment  in  all  its  forms,  and  thus 
it  sometimes  spoke  in  ecclesiastical  tones.  English 
Puritan  ministers  had  more  to  hope  from  Parliament 
than  from  the  Crown,  or  from  the  Bishops  and  Con- 
vocation ;  and  so,  although  ecclesiastics  themselves, 
they  appealed  to  the  lay,  and  not  to  the  ecclesiastical 
assembly.  Hence  it  was  that  Puritanism  in  England 
did  not  foster  theocracy,  as  it  did  in  Scotland,  and 
England  is  less  theocratic  than  Scotland,  even  when 
Puritanism  is  dominant  in  both. 

Nevertheless,  the  English  Presbyterians  were  more 
theocratic  than  the  mass  of  Englishmen  liked,  and  it 
was  their  efforts  to  impose  a  Presbyterian  system  upon 
England  which  divided  the  Roundhead  party,  led  to 
the  military  rule  of  Cromwell,  and  finally  to  the 
Restoration  of  Charles  II.  From  the  first,  indeed, 
there  were  opponents  of  the  Crown  and  the  Bishops 
who  were  not  Presbyterians.  Most  of  these  were 
Independents  or  Congregationalists,  who  believed  that 
the  original  ecclesia  or  chuich  was  the  congregation, 
and  that  each  congregation  had  the  right  to  manage 
its  own    affairs  without   interference  from  the  State, 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND  197 

from  bishops,  or  from  synods.  The  names  of  their 
leaders,  such  as  Cromwell  and  Milton,  are  familiar 
household  words,  and  the  part  they  played  in  history 
is  known  to  all.  But  there  were  other  enemies  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  as  represented  by  Laud,  whose 
hostility  arose,  not  so  much  from  theological  antipathy, 
as  from  dislike  of  the  political  pretensions  of  the  pre- 
lates: and  these  men  were  hostile  to  ecclesiastical 
claims  from  whatever  quarter  they  proceeded.  They 
detested  the  new  presbyter  just  as  much  as  they 
did  the  old  priest,  and  their  main  concern  was  to 
uphold  the  supremacy  of  State  over  Church,  whether 
the  Church  was  Catholic  or  Protestant,  Anglican 
or  Presbyterian.  They  were  Erastians,  pure  and 
simple. 

Of  these  men  the  chief  was  the  great  lawyer,  Selden, 
who  had  made  a  sensation  and  fame  early  in  his  career 
by  writing  a  book  on  tithes,  in  which  he  attacked  the 
divine  origin  of  that  institution,  and  denied  the  divine 
right  of  the  clergy  to  receive  them.  For  even  after  the 
Reformation,  the  Church  claimed  a  divine  right,  though 
it  took  a  financial  form.  This  was  not  the  only  con- 
tention which  brought  Selden  into  collision  with  the 
Anglican  Church.  '  All  is  as  the  state  pleases,'  he  says 
in  his  Table  Talk.  And  again, '  every  law  is  a  contract 
between  the  king  and  the  people,  and  therefore  to  be 
kept.'  Such  principles  were  destructive  of  the  claims 
X.OJUS  divinum  alike  of  kings,  bishops,  and  presbyters ; 
and  they  were  as  distasteful  to  the  Scottish  divines 
at  the  Westminster  Assembly  as  they  had  been  to 
Charles    I.    and    Archbishop    Laud.      During    those 


198   FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

famous  discussions,  Selden  employed  his  immense 
learning  to  humble,  as  Fuller  says,  the  jure-divinoship 
of  Presbytery  ;  but  a  rift  in  the  Puritan  union  of  hearts 
had  appeared  before  the  Westminster  Assembly  met. 
When  Pym  threw  the  Scottish  sword  into  the  balance 
between  King  and  Parliament,  the  Scots  demanded,  as 
the  price  of  their  alliance,  that  there  should  be  a 
religious  covenant  between  the  two  nations  as  well  as 
a  civil  league ;  and  they  wanted  to  pledge  the  English 
Parliament  to  a  remodelling  of  the  Anglican  Church 
*  according  to  the  example  of  the  best-reformed 
churches,'  that  is  to  say,  their  own.  But,  through 
the  skill  of  Sir  Henry  Vane  the  younger,  there  was 
added  the  clause  '  and  the  Word  of  God.'  The  Scots 
could  not  very  well  resist  the  addition  of  this  clause, 
for  that  would  be  to  admit  that  their  own  Church  was 
not  according  to  the  Word  of  God  ;  at  the  same  time, 
its  adoption  opened  the  door  for  Independency,  and, 
indeed,  for  any  other  form  of  Christian  church,  for  no 
one  would  admit  that  his  own  particular  church  was  not 
according  to  the  Word  of  God.  The  Scots,  doubtless, 
trusted  to  the  influence  of  their  military  and  political 
strength  to  make  their  interpretation  prevail  ;  and, 
assuredly,  it  would  have  done  so,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  unforeseen  development  of  Cromwell's  Ironsides ; 
and  the  issue,  which  had  been  debated  at  the  West- 
minster Assembly,  was  fought  out  at  Dunbar  and 
Worcester. 

Dunbar  was  the  death-blow  to  the  theocratic  and 
presbyterian  system.  The  Covenanters  had  done 
everything  which  could,  according  to  their  principles, 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     199 

ensure  success.  They  had  sought  to  purge  their  army 
of  every  taint  which  might  bring  down  the  wrath  of 
Heaven  upon  the  chosen  people  of  God ;  Charles  II. 
had  been  forced  to  declare  that  he  was  *  deeply 
humbled  and  afflicted  in  spirit  before  God  because  of 
his  father's  opposition  to  the  work  of  God.'  Even  so, 
he  was  kept  at  a  distance  from  the  army,  lest  his 
presence  involve  it  in  the  condemnation  of  Achan. 
With  the  same  object  a  commission  was  appointed  to 
weed  out  from  the  army  every  soldier  who  did  not  come 
up  to  the  requisite  standard  of  godliness.  Some  four 
thousand  troops  were  thus  cashiered  on  the  eve  of 
the  battle  of  Dunbar,  and,  in  the  words  of  a  royalist 
historian,  the  army  was  left  to  *  ministers'  sons,  clerks, 
and  such  other  sanctified  creatures,  who  hardly  ever 
saw  or  heard  of  any  sword  but  that  of  the  Spirit.'  This 
army  made  texts  do  duty  for  tactics  ;  Leslie  was  over- 
ruled, and  Cromwell  snatched  victory  out  of  the 
tightest  corner  he  ever  was  in.  Before  the  campaign 
had  opened,  Cromwell  besought  the  divines  to  think  it 
possible  that  they  were  mistaken,  and  Dunbar  must 
have  caused  many  searchings  of  heart.  From  it  may 
perhaps  be  dated  the  decline  of  the  Covenanting  spirit 
in  Scotland.  The  ministers,  it  is  true,  continued  to 
strive  as  before,  and  the  Covenanters  split  into  two 
factions,  the  Remonstrants  and  the  Engagers,  one 
attributing  their  failure  to  their  connection  with  a 
godless  king,  the  other  ascribing  it  to  the  folly  of  the 
zealots.  But  this  distraction  only  weakened  the  Kirk, 
and  facilitated  the  work  of  Cromwell's  government  in 
Scotland. 


200   FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

It  would  be  absurd  to  pretend  that  Scotland  was 
content  with  the  English  domination ;  but  that  rule 
gave  it  a  period  of  prosperity,  sound  administration, 
and  peace,  such  as  Scotland  had  not  known  before.  In 
particular,  it  was  not  a  persecuting  government  itself, 
and  to  some  extent  it  prevented  persecution  by  others. 
Fanaticism  was  thus  deprived  of  sustenance,  and 
materially  abated.  A  secular  spirit  of  compromise 
begins  to  appear,  and  to  soften  the  rancour  of 
theological  debate ;  and  it  was  this  spirit  of  com- 
promise which  alone  could  make  possible  any  real 
union  by  consent  between  the  English  and  the  Scottish 
peoples.  The  union  effected  under  the  Commonwealth 
and  Protectorate  lacked  this  essential  condition  of 
consent ;  the  Scots  considered  the  thirty  members 
allotted  them  on  the  basis  of  wealth  and  population 
to  be  a  ridiculously  inadequate  recognition  of  their 
moral  and  intellectual  importance.  These  members 
were  generally  the  nominees  of  the  government,  and 
the  legality  of  their  position  was  challenged  on  that 
score.  They  were,  said  one  member,  a  wooden  leg  tied 
to  a  natural  body,  and  that  kind  of  grafting  is  not,  as 
a  rule,  successful. 

The  Restoration  dissolved  this  union,  undid  all  the 
work  of  the  last  ten  years,  deprived  Scotland  of  the 
benefit  of  the  free  trade  enjoyed  with  England  under 
Cromwell's  union,  exposed  her  to  the  operation  of  the 
Navigation  Laws,  and  plunged  her  back  again  into  the 
political  and  religious  bitterness  which  the  tolerant 
rule  of  Cromwell  had  to  some  extent  allayed.  When 
Monck,  amid   almost  universal   acclamation,   set  out 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     201 

to  cross  the  Tweed  and  restore  the  Stuarts,  he  opened 
the  most  pitiful  chapter  in  the  whole  of  Scotland's 
history.  The  revival  of  the  theories  of  divine  right  of 
kings  renewed  the  necessity  for  a  divine  right  of 
presbytery  to  combat  them ;  and  the  restoration  of 
persecution  as  the  policy  of  the  government  inevitably 
produced  a  recrudescence  of  fanaticism.  Hence  we 
get  the  execution  of  Argyle,  the  Pentland  rising,  the 
excommunication  of  Charles  II.  by  Craig,  the  murder 
of  Archbishop  Sharp,  the  battle  of  Bothwell  Brig,  and 
the  martyrdom  of  Margaret  Wilson  and  scores  of 
others.  The  Parliament  of  Scotland,  as  of  yore,  is 
no  bulwark  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Crown, 
and  the  task  of  saving  Scotland's  liberties  is  left 
once  more  to  the  stubborn  temper  of  the  Kirk,  which, 
like  other  churches,  could  stand  any  test  except  that 
of  prosperity.  But  the  secular  spirit  had  affected  even 
the  Kirk ;  its  resistance  to  Charles  il.  and  Lauderdale 
is  less  national,  less  unanimous  than  it  had  been  to 
Charles  I.  and  Laud.  It  is  more  sectional,  more 
irresponsible ;  while  some  resort  to  murder  and  ill- 
prepared  revolts,  others  seek  favour  with  the  Court. 
The  Cameronians  are  a  section,  the  Covenanters  of 
1638  were  a  nation.  Part  of  this  sectionalism  was 
due  to  the  attraction  which  the  Anglican  Church 
exercised  over  the  higher  faction  of  the  Scottish 
clergy,  the  majority  of  whom  had  become  Episco- 
palian by  1688,  part  to  the  effects  of  Charles  ll.'s 
Declarations  of  Indulgence,  but  a  great  deal  to  a 
growing  immersion  in  commercial  pursuits,  which 
weakened  the  theological  bond  of  union. 


202      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

One  illustration  of  the  fanaticism  of  this  period 
has  generally  been  neglected,  for  obvious  reasons,  by 
Presbyterian  historians ;  and  that  is  the  belief  in, 
and  persecution  of,  witchcraft.  This  superstition 
seems  to  have  been  a  particular  weakness  of  extreme 
Protestants,  and  we  hear  far  more  of  it  after  the 
Reformation  than  we  do  in  the  Middle  Ages.  It 
was  not,  of  course,  unknown  before  the  sixteenth 
century;  Charlemagne  had  legislated  against  it,  and 
the  Inquisition  had  been  actively  employed  against 
witchcraft  in  the  fifteenth  century.  But  it  was  not 
until  1563  that  the  penalty  of  death  was  first  pre- 
scribed for  this  offence  in  Scotland.  This  remained 
the  law  until  1736,  and  it  was  during  the  period 
between  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution  that 
the  fury  against  witches  reached  its  height.  In  the 
year  1662  alone  no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and 
twenty  women  were  burnt  as  witches  in  Scotland, 
and  the  total  number  of  victims  to  this  barbarous 
delusion  must  be  reckoned  by  thousands  and  not 
by  hundreds.  Scotland  was  exceptional  in  this  re- 
spect, but  only  in  degree,  for  in  England  witches 
were  burnt  as  late  as  the  eighteenth  century,  and  at 
Salem,  in  Massachusetts,  there  was  an  appalling  out- 
burst of  fanaticism  against  witches  in  1692,  in  which 
several  eminent  and  esteemed  Puritan  divines  were 
disgracefully  involved.  But,  as  witchcraft  has  not 
yet  become  a  respectable  creed,  these  victims  of 
religious  persecution  have  not  been  honoured  with 
a  martyrologist,  and  occupy  but  little  space  in  the 
voluminous  pages  of  ecclesiastical  history. 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     203 

This  recrudescence  of  the  theological  spirit  in 
Scotland  threatened  to  revive  the  antagonism  between 
the  two  kingdoms,  and  they  were  only  bound  together 
by  a  common  resistance  to  a  despotic  government. 
Not  that  England  herself  was  without  her  theological 
disputes.  A  German  historian  carries  on  his  account 
of  the  period  of  the  Reformation  in  England  down 
to  1688;  and  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  view 
that  the  predominant  interest  in  English  politics  is 
religious  throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  and  that 
it  is  not  until  the  Revolution  that  the  Reformation 
has  worked  out  its  full  effect.  Not  until  1688  are 
Roman  Catholics  debarred  from  the  English  throne, 
and,  although  some  High  Churchmen  would  have  us 
believe  that  the  English  Church  was  Protestant  before 
the  Reformation,  and  Catholic  after  it,  the  Church 
was  really  more  Protestant  during  the  eighteenth 
century  than  at  any  other  period  of  its  existence. 
However  that  may  be,  there  is  no  denying  the  power 
of  religious  feeling  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  The 
so-called  Clarendon  Code,  the  Test  Act,  the  rabid 
fury  of  Titus  Oates's  Plot,  are  ample  proof.  Anglican 
fanaticism  rules  the  roost  under  Clarendon,  Protestant 
fanaticism  under  Shaftesbury,  and  Roman  Catholic 
fanaticism  under  James  II.  One  of  the  two  great 
aims  of  Charles  11.  was  religious ;  he  wanted  to  make 
himself  an  absolute  monarch,  but  he  also  wanted  to 
re-introduce  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  ;  and  it  was 
not  until  he  had  realised  the  impossibility  of  this 
second  object,  and  abandoned  it,  that  he  succeeded 
in  making  himself  absolute  for  the  last  four  years  of 


204      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

his  reign.  Had  not  James  II.  been  a  more  zealous 
Romanist,  as  well  as  a  more  stupid  man,  and  had 
he  not  tried  to  make  England  Roman  Catholic,  as 
well  as  to  make  himself  absolute,  he  might  have 
made  permanent  the  temporary  success  of  Charles  II. 

Yet  there  was,  despite  this  religious  atmosphere, 
a  difference  between  the  England  and  the  Scotland 
of  the  Restoration.  Charles  II.  and  Shaftesbury  do 
not  strike  one  at  first  sight  as  natural  leaders  of 
religion.  They  may  have  been  leaders  of  religious 
parties,  but  that,  after  all,  is  another  matter.  And, 
even  if  leaders  of  religious  parties,  they  were  politicians 
first  and  sober  leaders  of  religion  last.  Shaftesbury 
himself,  'a  daring  pilot  in  extremity,'  as  Dryden 
calls  him,  was  as  inferior  in  moral  character  to  Pym 
as  Charles  II.  was  to  Charles  I.  The  pagan  spirit 
of  the  Restoration  pervaded  politics  and  religion,  and 
in  the  religious  passions  of  the  time  there  was  a  good 
deal  more  passion  than  there  was  religion.  The  con- 
tention is  not  about  doctrine  or  theology,  but  about 
the  political  power  and  privileges  to  be  enjoyed  by 
the  members  of  the  various  churches.  The  Puritans 
are  not  hated  because  they  refuse  to  subscribe  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  but  because  they  had  cut  off 
the  head  of  a  King,  and  had  closed  the  theatres. 
Romanists  are  not  feared  because  they  believe  in 
Transubstantiation,  but  because  they  were  thought  to 
be  in  league  with  Louis  xiv.  The  motive  was,  in 
fact,  largely,  if  not  mainly,  political ;  and  the  party 
leaders  use  religious  passions  for  political  purposes. 
James  II.  was  enthusiastically  welcomed  on  his  acces- 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND     205 

sion,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  every  one  knew  that 
he  was  a  Roman  Catholic ;  indeed,  his  staunchness 
to  his  faith  was  reckoned  one  of  the  points  in  his 
favour.  It  was  not  until  he  began  to  dispense  with 
the  laws  and  with  Parliament,  and  to  show  an  in- 
clination to  set  up  a  military  despotism,  that  the 
nation  began  to  distrust  him.  The  Revolution,  while 
its  religious  aspect  looks  back  to  the  past  and  con- 
summates the  Reformation,  has  also  its  political  aspect, 
which  looks  forward  to  the  future  and  points  towards 
the  Reform  Bill.  It  rang  out  the  old  religion,  but  it 
also  rang  in  the  new  politics.  The  curtain  came  down 
upon  the  Reformation,  but  it  rose  upon  Reform,  and 
a  secular,  latitudinarian  spirit  takes  the  place  of  the 
old  theological  passion. 

A  similar  transformation  was  coming  over  Scotland, 
though  it  was  not  by  any  means  so  marked.  Ever  since 
the  battle  of  Dunbar,  religious  interests  had  really  been 
declining  in  Scotland ;  and  the  revived  importance  of 
them  after  the  Restoration  was  a  fictitious  importance 
due  to  the  misgovernment  of  the  Stuarts.  This  becomes 
evident  upon  the  accession  of  William  III. :  he  was 
neither  an  Englishman  nor  a  Scot ;  coming  from  abroad, 
he  looked  at  both  countries  from  a  more  detached  point 
of  view,  just  as  an  Englishman  sent  out  to  govern  India 
takes  a  more  comprehensive  and  impartial  view  of  Indian 
politics  than  if  he  had  been  born  a  Mahratta,  a  Sikh, 
or  a  Bengali.  William  was  anxious  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  existing  episcopal  organisation  of  the 
Church  in  Scotland,  but  so  liberalised  as  to  compre- 
hend all  the  Presbyterians.     This  scheme  of  compre- 


2o6      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

hension  broke  down  through  the  unexpected  fidelity 
of  the  Scottish  Episcopalians  to  James  ii.,  and 
Presbyterianism  became  the  State  religion.  But  the 
settlement  was  very  different  from  that  of  1647.  The 
Covenants  were  not  renewed :  indeed  an  Act  of  1662, 
which  condemned  them  as  unlawful,  was  allowed  to 
remain  in  force.  Excommunication  was  deprived  of 
its  civil  penalties,  and  the  oath  of  allegiance  was 
adopted,  in  lieu  of  all  religious  tests,  as  the  passport 
to  political  office.  The  majority  of  Scotsmen  were, 
in  fact,  turning  away  from  theological  disputes,  and 
concentrating  their  interests  on  that  expansion  of 
Scottish  commerce  which  is  a  marked  feature  of 
Scottish  history  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  prominent  Scotsmen  of  the 
reign  of  William  are  no  longer  Presbyterian  divines, 
but  financiers,  like  William  Paterson,  who  founded  the 
Bank  of  England,  or  John  Law,  who  sought  to  revolu- 
tionise the  French  finance.  The  events  which  make  a 
stir  are  not  covenants,  but  the  Darien  scheme  and  the 
Massacre  of  Glencoe. 

This  decline  of  the  theological  spirit  smoothed  the 
path  to  Union  in  1707.  Scotland's  consent  was  largely 
bought  by  the  prospect  of  free  trade  with  England,  a 
motive  which  would  not  have  appealed  to  a  nation 
entirely  immersed  in  religion  and  theology.  The  same 
inducement  had  failed  to  work  throughout  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  it  was  only  effective  now  because 
the  spread  of  latitudinarianism  had  undermined  the 
strength  of  theological  antipathies.  As  it  was,  Presby- 
terian Scots  accepted  union  with  an  Episcopal  country, 


ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND  207 

and  sat  cheek  by  jowl  with  Anglicans  at  Westminster, 
braving  the  contagion  of  prelatical  poison.  Anglicans 
connived  at  the  establishment  of  heresy  as  a  State 
religion  across  the  Border.  The  old  priest,  not  writ  so 
large  as  before,  and  the  new  presbyter,  looking  some- 
what small,  lay  down  together,  and  Walpole  led  them 
in  the  paths  of  peace. 


208       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


IX 

CROMWELLIAN   CONSTITUTIONS 

Of  the  many  interesting  and  important  questions 
connected  with  the  history  of  the  Commonwealth  and 
Protectorate,  none  are  of  more  permanent  significance 
than  the  various  expedients  to  which  recourse  was  had 
to  solve  the  constitutional  problems  created  by  the 
destruction  of  the  monarchy,  the  dissolution  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  the  undisguised  predominance 
of  the  army.  These  phenomena  were  revolutionary 
enough,  but  perhaps  they  were  not  really  so  radical  as 
the  attempts  to  give  England  a  written,  rigid  con- 
stitution, embodying  certain  fixed  and  fundamental 
principles  which  should  be  unchangeable  even  by  the 
Legislature  itself  For  the  great  characteristic  of  the 
British  Constitution,  which  distinguishes  it  from  all 
foreign  constitutions,  is  that  it  is  not  and  never  has 
been,  except  for  temporary  aberrations,  a  written,  or 
a  rigid  constitution,  or  one  in  which  there  was  any 
fundamental  law. 

These  phrases,  perhaps,  require  some  explanation, 
especially  as  they  represent  the  principles  upon  which 
some  political  philosophers  would  classify  and  dis- 
tinguish modern  constitutions.  The  old  classification 
derived  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  into  monarchy,  aris- 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      209 

tocracy,  and  democracy,  and  the  several  perversions  of 
these  forms,  has  long  ceased  to  have  any  practical 
application  to  modern  conditions,  although  it  still 
retains  its  place  in  text-books  as  the  starting-point  of 
all  political  wisdom ;  and  political  writers  have  long 
been  casting  about  for  some  more  satisfactory  method 
of  classification.  What,  then,  is  meant  by  saying  that 
a  constitution  is  written  or  unwritten  ?  When  a  great 
French  political  philosopher,  De  Tocqueville,  was 
asked  about  the  English  Constitution,  he  said,  '  Elle 
n'existe  point.'  It  does  not  exist,  in  fact,  in  the  same 
sense  that  the  French  or  Belgian  constitution  exists  ;  for 
these  are  definite,  written  documents.  Most  educated 
men  in  France  have  a  copy  of  the  French  Constitution 
on  their  bookshelves,  and  can  point  to  it  and  say, '  That 
is  the  French  Constitution.'  Now  that  is  not  possible 
for  an  Englishman  :  there  is  no  one  document,  or  series 
of  documents,  called  the  British  Constitution.  For  him 
it  is  a  much  more  complex  thing,  and  sometimes  he 
finds  himself  in  the  law-courts  before  he  finds  out 
what  the  British  Constitution  is :  and  even  the  mere 
repetition  of  the  words  is,  I  believe,  sometimes  used* 
as  a  test  of  sobriety.  The  British  Constitution  is  a 
miscellaneous,  uncollected,  undigested  mass  of  statutes, 
legal  decisions,  and  vague  understandings  or  mis- 
understandings, some  of  which  have  never  been  put 
down  in  writing.  No  book  contains  them  all;  and 
there  is  nothing — not  even  the  House  of  Lords — to 
which  we  can  point  and  say,  '  This  is  the  British  Con- 
stitution.' That  is  what  De  Tocqueville  meant  when 
he  said  that  the  British  Constitution  did  not  exist ; 

O 


210      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

and  that  is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the 
British  Constitution  is  unwritten.  That  phrase  does 
not,  of  course,  imply  that  no  parts  of  it  are  written  ; 
for  Magna  Carta,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Acts,  and  the 
Bill  of  Rights  are  all  parts  of  the  British  Constitution ; 
but  there  is  no  one  document  which  can  be  described 
as  such. 

Now,  what  do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  British 
Constitution  is  not  rigid  but  flexible  ?  We  mean  this  : 
that  no  part  of  the  Constitution  is  unalterable  by 
the  ordinary  legislative  methods.  Parliament  could 
at  any  time  repeal  the  Habeas  Corpus  Acts,  the  Bill 
of  Rights,  and  even  Magna  Carta  itself;  it  could 
prolong  its  own  existence  indefinitely  by  repealing 
the  Septennial  Act ;  it  could  abolish  trial  by  jury, 
and  set  up  a  Star  Chamber  or  the  Inquisition,  and 
none  of  these  things  would  be  illegal.  There  is,  in 
fact,  nothing  fundamental  in  the  British  Constitu- 
tion ;  for  although  we  loosely  talk  of  things  being 
fundamental  which  are  merely  more  important  in 
our  eyes  than  other  things,  the  word  properly  means 
things  which  cannot  be  altered  by  the  ordinary  legis- 
lative machinery.  But  in  the  French,  or  in  the 
American  Constitution,  there  are  many  things  which 
cannot  be  altered  by  the  French  or  American  Legis- 
latures :  both  are  bound  and  limited  by  the  powers 
conferred  upon  them  by  the  original,  written  Con- 
stitution. That  Constitution  is  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
legislative  bodies,  and  can  only  be  touched  by  calling 
into  play  a  special  and  cumbrous  constitutional 
machinery.     The  reason  for  this  in  America  is,  that 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      211 

the  framers  of  the  Constitution  were  forced  to  safeguard 
the  interests  of  the  individual  States  against  the  possible 
encroachments  of  the  Federal  authority,  and  conse- 
quently they  embodied  in  the  Constitution  a  number 
of  prohibitions  and  limitations  on  the  powers  of  the 
Legislature,  and  they  entrusted  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Judicature  with  the  duty  of  seeing  that  these  limitations 
were  observed.  Any  law  passed  by  Congress  may  be 
brought  before  the  Supreme  Court,  and  its  legality 
contested.  If  the  Supreme  Court  decides  that  the 
enactment  contravenes  any  of  the  limits  imposed  by 
the  Constitution,  that  enactment  becomes  ipso  facto 
void.  Thus,  a  few  years  ago.  Congress  found  that  it 
had  no  power  to  impose  an  income-tax  upon  the 
American  people ;  and  one  of  the  great  difficulties  in 
dealing  with  the  Trusts  is,  that  the  law  of  Association 
is  as  much  a  matter  for  the  individual  States  as  for  the 
Federal  authority,  and  Congress  cannot  dictate  the 
conditions  upon  which  individual  States  shall  permit 
associations  and  combines  to  be  formed  within  their 
borders.  So,  in  the  same  way,  the  American  Constitu- 
tion rigidly  defines  the  limits  between  the  Legislature, 
the  Executive,  and  the  Judicature.  No  judge  in 
America  can  be  removed  by  an  address  of  Congress, 
as  he  can  in  England  by  an  address  of  both  Houses 
of  Parliament.  No  vote  of  censure  by  the  Senate 
or  the  House  of  Representatives  can  terminate,  or  even 
shorten,  the  existence  of  an  American  administration. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  President  cannot  dissolve  the 
Legislature  one  hour  before  its  appointed  time ;  he 
cannot  appeal  from  a  hostile  Congress  to  a  friendly 


212      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

country.  In  England  the  Prime  Minister  can,  if  he 
likes,  turn  out  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  House 
of  Commons  can,  if  it  likes,  turn  out  the  Prime 
Minister.  In  America,  neither  can  remove  the  other ; 
they  can  only  annoy  one  another,  and  impede  one 
another's  action  until  the  period  pre-ordained  by  the 
Constitution  has  elapsed.  The  whole  Constitution  is 
fixed  and  rigid,  and  consequently  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  friction. 

There  is  nothing  corresponding  to  all  this  in  the 
English  Constitution,  where  all  the  more  important 
parts  of  the  Constitution  are  flexible;  and,  perhaps, 
the  greatest  advantage  of  this  flexibility  is  that  it  has 
permitted  the  Constitution  to  be  shaped  and  moulded 
by  those  who  have  had  to  work  the  machine,  without 
the  necessity  of  appealing  for  approval  to  the  ignorant 
and  prejudiced.  Let  me  take  the  Prime  Minister  as 
an  example.  I  do  not,  of  course,  refer  to  any  par- 
ticular Prime  Minister,  but  to  the  species.  The  Prime 
Minister  is  the  pivot  of  the  whole  constitutional  sys- 
tem ;  yet  until  the  other  day  he  was  unknown  to  the 
written  law  of  the  Constitution :  no  Act  of  Parliament 
has  ever  been  passed  to  create,  to  regulate,  or  to 
modify  his  office  or  his  functions.  He  does  not  occur 
in  the  Statute  Book,  he  is  unknown  in  the  courts  of 
law.  In  fact,  he  has  grown,  and  not  been  made.  It 
would  not  have  been  possible  to  make  him  by  Act 
of  Parliament ;  for  the  prejudice  against  such  an  office 
throughout  the  eighteenth  century  was  so  great  that 
no  House  of  Commons,  and  probably  no  House  of 
Lords,  would   ever   have  passed   the   bill      Walpole, 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      213 

who  was  a  Prime  Minister  if  ever  there  was  one,  had 
to  repudiate  the  title  ;  but  a  Prime  Minister  was  felt 
to  be  necessary  by  those  who  had  to  govern  England  ; 
and  so,  gradually,  imperceptibly,  and  in  spite  of  the 
prejudices  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  the  office  of 
Prime  Minister  was  evolved,  thanks  to  the  flexible 
and  unwritten  character  of  our  Constitution.  If  the 
practice  of  writing  Constitutions,  set  by  the  Common- 
wealth and  Protectorate,  had  been  followed,  we  should 
never  have  had  a  Prime  Minister  at  all. 

So  it  is  with  the  Cabinet ;  that  body,  which  rules  the 
Empire,  is  as  unknown  to  the  written  law  of  the  Con- 
stitution as  the  Prime  Minister.  It,  too,  has  grown 
without  the  help  of  legislation.  It  is  an  organic 
growth  and  not  a  manufactured  article.  Therefore 
it  has  been  able  to  adapt  itself  to  the  changing  cir- 
cumstances of  its  being  silently  and  gradually,  without 
the  intervention  of  the  written  law.  Nor,  again,  would 
it  have  been  possible  to  create  the  Cabinet  by  statu- 
tory enactment ;  for  Parliament  was  bitterly  jealous 
of  all  such  bodies.  It  even  did  its  best  to  make  a 
Cabinet  permanently  impossible  by  prohibiting  all 
holders  of  paid  offices  under  the  Crown  from  sitting 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  a  prohibition  which  still 
survives  in  the  obligation  on  ministers  to  seek  re- 
election on  their  appointment  to  their  office.  We  may 
be  sure  that  Parliament  in  such  a  frame  of  mind  would 
never  have  passed  an  act  creating  the  modern  Cabinet. 
So  the  Cabinet,  again,  was  left  for  the  statesmen  of 
the  eighteenth  century  to  work  out  by  a  slow  and 
gradual  evolution.     Similarly,  the  whole  process  of  the 


214      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

modification  of  the  powers  and  position  of  the  House 
of  Lords  has  been  achieved  without  legislation.  No 
statute  has  deprived  the  Upper  House  of  the  power 
of  amending  or  rejecting  money-bills  sent  up  by  the 
House  of  Commons;  no  Act  prohibits  it  from  rejecting 
as  often  as  it  likes  measures  approved  by  the  constitu- 
encies. Again,  no  statute  requires  a  Government  to 
resign  when  it  has  forfeited  the  confidence  of  the 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons ;  no  direct  law 
enjoins  the  summons  of  Parliament  every  year;  and 
there  would  be  nothing  illegal  in  the  disbandment  of  all 
the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  Crown.  All  these 
things  are  left  to  the  operation  of  public  opinion,  or  of 
what  are  called  the  conventions  of  the  Constitution. 

These  conventions  are  the  most  characteristic  and 
perhaps  the  most  important  parts  of  the  Constitution  ; 
they  are  simply  understandings,  upon  which  statesmen 
may  be  trusted  to  act,  but  which  are  not  written,  and 
could  not  be  enforced  in  any  court  of  law.  They  are 
as  flexible  as  usage  cares  to  make  them,  and  they  are 
always  being  formed  and  modified  day  by  day.  The 
British  Constitution  is  thus  a  living  organism,  ever 
adapting  itself  to  the  changing  needs  of  time,  and  ever 
avoiding  that  friction  which  a  rigid  Constitution  in- 
evitably involves.  For  you  cannot  keep  things  as 
they  are ;  and  if  your  Constitution  is  based  on  the 
assumption  that  they  will  not  change,  it  is  bound 
sooner  or  later  to  prove  inadequate  or  ineffective.  The 
most  stable  Constitution  is  that  which  ensures  the 
readiest  adaptation  to  the  change  of  circumstances. 

This  somewhat  lengthy  preface  has  seemed  advis- 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      215 

able  in  order  to  bring  out  the  importance  of  the 
attempts  which  were  made  during  the  Commonwealth 
and  Protectorate  to  divert  the  stream  of  English  con- 
stitutional development,  and  to  provide  England  with 
a  written,  rigid  Constitution.  It  may  also  be  worth 
remarking  that  the  character  of  the  American  Consti- 
tution has  been  attributed  to  conscious  and  deliberate 
imitation  of  these  Puritan  and  Republican  constitu- 
tions of  seventeenth-century  England  ;  though  other 
influences  must  also  be  taken  into  account.  For  one 
thing,  the  American  colonists  had  always  lived  under 
a  system  of  written,  rigid  constitutions,  namely  the 
charters  by  which  the  various  colonies  had  been 
founded.  Secondly,  the  fact  that  the  new  State  was 
bound  to  be  a  federation  compelled  the  authors  of  the 
Constitution  to  define  in  a  written  document  the  rela- 
tions between  the  individual  States  and  the  central 
power.  Thirdly,  the  Americans  had  obviously  been 
frightened  by  Hobbes's  doctrine  of  sovereignty.  They 
saw  George  ill.  in  every  possible  sovereign  ;  and  they 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  sovereignty  was  much 
too  dangerous  a  thing  to  be  left  at  large.  Conse- 
quently, they  put  it  under  lock  and  key,  or  rather  a 
triple  lock  and  triple  keys.  And  they  gave  one  key  to 
the  Executive,  one  to  the  Legislature,  and  one  to  the 
Supreme  Court;  and  it  is  only  with  the  connivance  of 
these  three  that  sovereignty  can  be  let  loose  in  the 
United  States.  Rousseau  said  that  the  English  were 
free  only  once  in  seven  years ;  and  it  is  true  that  only 
at  a  general  election  do  the  constituencies  exercise 
political  sovereignty.     But  only  about  once  in  a  genera- 


2i6      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

tion  does  the  American  people  assert  its  mastery  over 
the  Constitution,  which  at  all  other  times  controls  and 
limits  its  action. 

Now,  why  was  it  during  the  Commonwealth  and 
Protectorate  that  attempts  were  made  to  tie  up  the 
English  Constitution  in  a  somewhat  similar  manner? 
The  answer  will  be  found  in  the  circumstance  that  the 
dominant  party  wanted  to  place  certain  political  prin- 
ciples out  of  the  reach  of  the  ordinary  Legislature, 
which  was  pretty  certain  to  be  hostile  to  those  prin- 
ciples. And  this  arose  from  the  logical  quandary  in 
which  the  nation  was  landed  by  the  result  of  the  Civil 
War.  The  whole  struggle  from  1603- 1649  had  centred 
round  the  question  whether  the  Executive  or  the 
Legislature,  Parliament  or  the  Crown,  was  to  be  the 
supreme  authority  in  the  State.  In  that  contest  the 
Crown  was  defeated,  but  Parliament  did  not  reap  the 
fruits  of  victory ;  in  fact  it  had  not  won  the  victory. 
Had  Parliament  been  left  to  its  own  genius  and  to  its 
own  resources,  the  victor  would  have  been  the  King. 
It  was  Cromwell  and  the  army  which  had  saved  Eng- 
land from  a  Stuart  despotism  ;  and  Cromwell  and  the 
army  were  resolved  to  have  a  voice  and  a  share  in  the 
distribution  of  the  spoils.  But  both  soon  found  them- 
selves as  much  out  of  sympathy  with  the  majority  of 
the  House  of  Commons  as  Charles  I.  had  ever  been. 
They  were  equally  out  of  sympathy  with  the  mass  of 
the  nation  ;  the  appeal  to  arms  had  meant,  as  it  always 
does,  the  triumph  of  military  efficiency  over  political 
principle :  success  in  the  barbarous  arbitrament  of  war 
has  no  relevance  to  the  validity  of  civil  argument,  and 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      217 

the  victor  in  a  war  is  just  as  likely  to  be  wrong  as 
right,  and  almost  certain  to  be  despotic.  In  this  case 
neither  Cromwell  nor  the  army  had  much  sympathy 
with  the  principles  for  which  Parliament  had  con- 
tended. Cromwell  believed  in  a  strong  executive,  at 
least  so  long  as  he  controlled  it ;  and,  indeed,  the 
possession  of  power  makes  even  the  most  radical 
anxious  to  avoid  at  least  one  change,  just  as  being  in 
opposition  converts  the  most  conservative  to  the  neces- 
sity of  one  political  alteration.  Cromwell  was  not  so 
purely  an  opportunist  as  this  ;  his  constitutional  ideas 
were  not  so  very  far  removed  from  those  of  the  Stuarts. 
He  had  objected  to  the  things  they  did,  rather  than  to 
the  way  they  did  them,  and  he  was  convinced  that  an 
executive,  to  be  strong,  must  have  a  wide  discretion. 
He  had  little  patience  with  the  talking-shop  at  West- 
minster ;  that  was  why  he  appealed  so  strongly  to 
Carlyle,  who  once  said  to  Lord  Wolseley  that  he  hoped 
some  day  to  see  him  treat  the  House  of  Commons  as 
Cromwell  did  the  Rump.  There  is,  however,  no  occa- 
sion to  denounce  him  as  the  destroyer  of  a  constitu- 
tional rigime ;  for,  from  that  point  of  view,  there  was 
little  to  choose  between  him  and  Parliament.  Both 
were  bent  on  ruling  in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  the 
majority  of  the  people ;  and  it  was  the  determination 
of  the  Rump  to  prolong  its  own  existence  by  its  own 
•illegal  fiat  which  provoked  its  violent  expulsion  by 
Cromwell's  troops.  So,  too,  there  is  an  answer  to  the 
common  charge  against  Cromwell  that  he  ruled  by  the 
sword ;  and  that  is,  that  there  was  nothing  left  to  rule 
by,  other  than  the  sword. 


2i8      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

The  crux  of  the  situation  was  the  fact  that  govern- 
ment by  consent  was  for  the  moment  out  of  the 
question.  It  was  not  in  human  nature  for  the 
victors  to  give  up  the  spoils  of  victory,  and  quietly 
submit  to  be  ruled  by  the  majority  they  had  con- 
quered. Therefore  a  despotism  was  inevitable,  and, 
Englishmen  being  averse  from  naked  despotism,  the 
question  was  how  to  clothe  it  with  a  decent  constitu- 
tional garb.  That  was  the  real,  though  perhaps  un- 
conscious, motive  of  the  rigid,  written  constitutions  of 
the  Commonwealth  and  Protectorate.  They  were  so 
many  efforts  to  fix  a  legal  wig  upon  the  point  of  the 
soldier's  sword.  The  covering  was  somewhat  scanty, 
and  the  effect  was  not  all  that  might  have  been  desired. 
The  sword  remained  too  obviously  the  important  part 
of  the  concern,  the  wig  was  difficult  to  adjust,  it  was 
always  falling  off,  and  the  two  things  did  not  really 
harmonise. 

The  all-important  thing,  then,  was  to  secure  the 
government,  which  the  army  had  set  up,  against 
attack  from  the  Parliament,  which  this  government 
desired  to  create  as  a  cloak  for  its  military  nature. 
The  powers  of  Parliament  must,  then,  be  limited  and 
defined  ;  certain  things  must  be  placed  beyond  its 
reach.  Now,  Parliament  could  not  be  trusted  to  do 
this  definition  itself ;  it  could  not  be  expected  to  pass 
two  self-denying  ordinances  in  one  generation,  more 
especially  as  the  first  had  led  to  that  very  supremacy 
of  the  sword  which  it  now  so  much  resented.  So 
there  must  be  a  bold  assumption  of  fundamental  law 
existing  by  its  own  authority,  and  circumscribing  and 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      219 

defining  the  legislative  authority  of  Parliament.  You 
may  remember  that  law,  which  is  originally  no  more 
than  custom,  is  afterwards  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
treasury  of  Divine  or  natural  wisdom  which  human 
rulers  may  apply  to  the  countries  over  which  they 
rule ;  and  only  in  the  latest  stages  of  the  development 
of  human  thought  is  it  a  command  of  the  State.  The 
Fundamental  Law  of  Cromwell  and  the  army  seems  to 
belong  to  the  second  of  these  stages,  and  they  regarded 
themselves  as  more  or  less  divinely  commissioned  to 
employ  force  in  the  application  of  this  law. 

Cromwell  himself  described  the  doctrine  of  Funda- 
mental Law  in  a  speech  to  the  Parliament  of  1654.  *  In 
every  government,'  he  said,  *  there  must  be  somewhat 
fundamental,  somewhat  like  a  Magna  Carta,  that 
should  be  standing  and  be  unalterable.  Some  things 
are  fundamentals,  they  may  not  be  parted  with  ;  but 
will,  I  trust,  be  delivered  over  to  posterity  as  being  the 
fruits  of  our  blood  and  travail.  The  Government  by 
a  Single  Person  and  a  Parliament  is  a  fundamental. 
.  .  .  That  Parliaments  should  not  make  themselves 
perpetual  is  a  fundamental.  .  .  .  Again,  is  not  liberty 
of  conscience  in  religion  a  fundamental  ?  So  long  as 
there  is  liberty  of  conscience  for  the  Supreme  Magi- 
strate to  exercise  his  conscience  in  erecting  what  form 
of  church-government  he  is  satisfied  he  should  set  up, 
why  should  he  not  give  it  (the  like  liberty)  to  others? 
Liberty  of  conscience  is  a  natural  right ;  and  he,  that 
would  have  it,  ought  to  give  it,  having  himself  liberty 
to  settle  what  he  likes  for  the  public.  .  .  .  The 
magistrate  hath  his   supremacy,  and   he   may   settle 


220      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Religion,  that  is  church-government,  according  to  his 
conscience.  .  .  .  This,  I  say,  is  fundamental.  It  ought 
to  be  so.  It  is  for  us  and  the  generations  to  come.  .  .  . 
Another  fundamental,  which  I  had  forgotten,  is  the 
Militia.  That  is  judged  a  fundamental,  if  anything  be 
so.  ,  .  .  What  signifies  a  provision  against  perpetuating 
of  Parliaments,  if  this  power  of  the  Militia  be  solely  in 
theml  .  .  .  And  if  this  one  thing  be  placed  in  one 
party,  that  one,  be  it  Parliament,  be  it  Supreme 
Governor,  they  or  he  hath  power  to  make  what  they 
please  of  all  the  rest.  Therefore  ...  it  should  be  so 
equally  placed  that  no  one  person,  neither  in  Parlia- 
ment nor  out  of  Parliament,  should  have  the  power  of 
ordering  it.' 

These  fundamentals  of  Cromwell  anticipate  much 
of  later  English  history,  and  Dr.  Gardiner  speaks 
enthusiastically  of  his  *  power  of  seeing  into  the  heart 
of  a  situation ' ;  for,  *  whilst  the  Instrument  of  Govern- 
ment, with  its  many  artificial  devices  for  stemming  the 
tide  of  Parliamentary  supremacy,  perished  without 
leaving  its  mark  on  the  Constitution,  his  four  funda- 
mentals have  been  accepted  by  the  nation,  and  are 
at  this  day  as  firmly  rooted  in  its  conscience  as 
Parliamentary  supremacy  itself.'  Some  qualification 
seems  necessary  before  we  can  accept  this  as  a  literal 
statement  of  the  fact.  Government  by  a  single  person 
and  a  Parliament  is  not  accepted  as  a  fundamental  in 
the  sense  in  which  Cromwell  meant  it,  for  the  single 
person  does  not  really  govern  in  the  sense  that 
Cromwell  governed.  He  may  not  *  settle  religion,  that 
is   church-government,    according    to   his   conscience.' 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      221 

Indeed,  he  is  prohibited  by  Act  of  Parliament  from 
indulging  his  conscience  to  such  an  extent,  at  any  rate, 
as  to  become  a  Roman  Catholic.  The  same  interpre- 
tation has  to  be  put  on  Cromwell's  '  magistrate '  as 
upon  Hobbes's  sovereign  to  make  them  applicable  to 
latter-day  conditions ;  they  must  both  be  given  a 
composite  and  not  an  individual  personality ;  the 
king  must  be  the  king  in  Parliament,  and  so  must  be 
the  magistrate.  Even  then,  as  a  matter  of  practical 
politics,  he  cannot  settle  religion  according  to  his 
conscience. 

Moreover,  these  things,  so  far  as  they  are  accepted 
to-day,  are  accepted  as  fundamental  ideas  rather  than 
as  fundamental  laws.  It  is  quite  true  that  Crom- 
well's conception  of  the  functions  and  objects  of  the 
State  is  singularly  modern,  but  his  conception  of  the 
methods,  by  which  those  objects  were  to  be  achieved, 
has  never  been  adopted  since  his  time.  Even  Magna 
Carta,  which  Cromwell  quoted  as  a  fundamental,  was 
not  really  fundamental  law,  though  the  barons  had 
tried  to  make  it  such  by  legalising  armed  rebellion  and 
civil  war  if  the  king  refused  to  carry  out  its  provisions. 
Fortunately  they  failed  in  their  attempt  to  perpetuate 
Magna  Carta  as  fundamental  law ;  for  it  was  really 
a  feudal  document  drawn  up  in  the  interests  of  the 
barons  and  designed  to  protect  their  private  jurisdic- 
tions, privileges,  and  monopolies  against  the  rule  of 
common-law.  There  would  have  been  little  liberty  or 
justice  in  England  had  the  barons  secured  the  privilege, 
promised  them  in  Magna  Carta,  of  trying  their  depen- 
dants for  almost  all  offences  in   their  own   manorial 


222       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

courts ;  and  there  would  have  been  little  law  and  order 
had  they  retained  the  right,  also  promised  them  in 
Magna  Carta,  of  settling  their  disputes  by  recourse 
to  trial  by  battle.  The  modern  conception  of  Magna 
Carta  is,  in  fact,  a  myth  invented  in  the  seventeenth 
century ;  and  the  only  serious  use  made  of  it  in  the 
sixteenth  was  the  attempt,  by  an  appeal  to  it,  to  stop 
the  Parliament  from  legislating  for  the  Church  and  to 
perpetuate  the  Roman  jurisdiction. 

The  whole  conception  of  fundamental  law  was  alien 
to  the  spirit  of  the  English  Constitution,  and  the 
attempt  of  Cromwell  to  make  it  fundamental  was  in 
itself  a  revolution,  the  magnitude  of  which  the  Pro- 
tector did  not  himself  perceive.  And  it  was  not  more 
likely  to  prove  palatable  because  it  was  dictated  solely 
by  the  interests  of  the  ruling  military  faction  and  not 
by  the  interests  or  desires  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
Cromwell,  conscious  of  this  antagonism,  was  driven  to 
take  up  a  position  hardly  distinguishable  from  that  of 
the  Stuarts.  'Though  some,'  he  says  in  his  fourth 
speech,  *  may  think  it  is  a  hard  thing  without  Parlia- 
mentary authority  to  raise  money  upon  this  nation; 
yet  I  have  another  argument  to  the  good  people  of 
this  nation  .  .  .  whether  they  prefer  the  having  of 
their  will,  though  it  be  their  destruction,  rather  than 
comply  with  things  of  necessity  ? '  He  claimed  the 
right  to  levy  money  without  the  consent  of  Parliament, 
he  claimed  the  right  of  controlling  the  militia.  Yet  he 
had  voted  for  the  Petition  of  Right,  which  prohibited 
taxation  without  the  consent  of  Parliament ;  and  in 
1642  he  had  taken  part  in  the  struggle  of  the  House  of 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      223 

Commons  to  deprive  the  king  of  the  right  to  control 
the  militia,  which  he  now  claimed  to  exercise  as 
Protector. 

But,  in  spite  of  the  unfortunate  circumstances  which 
attended  the  birth  of  these  Cromwellian  constitutions 
and  condemned  them  from  the  first  to  a  short  and 
unhappy  existence,  there  was  much  in  their  nature 
which  entitled  them  to  a  better  fate.  They  were  not 
merely  the  expedients  of  an  army  embarrassed  by 
lack  of  constitutional  clothing ;  they  were  also  great 
measures  of  reform  and  constructive  statesmanship. 
The  Instrument  of  Government^  which  was  drawn  up  in 
December  1653,  contained  in  it  two,  if  not  three,  Acts 
of  Union,  a  Franchise  Act,  an  Act  for  the  Redistribution 
of  Seats,  an  Act  for  the  Settlement  of  the  Revenue, 
besides  the  establishment  of  the  Protectorate  and 
Council  of  State,  and  the  definition  of  the  functions,  the 
duration  and  the  powers  of  Parliament.  The  provisions 
with  respect  to  the  office  of  Protector,  the  composition 
of  the  Council  of  State,  the  revenue,  and  the  machinery 
for  securing  triennial  sessions  of  Parliament  may  be 
omitted,  because  they  anticipated  nothing  of  importance 
in  subsequent  English  history. 

But  it  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Instrument 
of  Government  was  the  most  comprehensive  Act  of 
Union  in  English  history.  Both  Scotland  and  Ireland 
were  included  at  the  same  time :  thirty  members  were 
to  represent  Scotland,  and  thirty  Ireland,  in  the 
United  Parliament.  The  numbers  seem  small  com- 
pared with  the  four  hundred  members  allotted  to  the 
predominant  partner ;  but,  apparently,  they  were  not 


224      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

unfairly  based  upon  a  calculation  of  the  respective 
wealth  and  population  of  the  three  countries.  Nor 
were  Scotland  and  Ireland  the  only  spheres  which 
were  now  for  the  first  time  brought  within  the  Parlia- 
mentary system.  Wales  had  received  Parliamentary 
representation  at  the  hands  of  Henry  Vlil.,  who  had 
also  extended  the  same  boon  to  Cheshire,  to  Calais,  and 
to  Berwick-upon-Tweed.  But  the  County  Palatine  of 
Durham  and  the  Channel  Islands  still  remained  unre- 
presented in  the  Parliament  of  England.  Durham 
was  the  last  of  those  great  medieval  franchises  which 
had  been  guaranteed  by  Magna  Carta,  and  long  resisted 
all  efforts  to  incorporate  them  in  the  national  system  ; 
it  had  its  own  courts  of  law  and  other  regalia,  or  royal 
rights,  such  as  the  right  of  coinage ;  but  the  dangers 
of  the  system  in  the  case  of  Durham  were  mitigated 
by  the  fact  that  the  earl  was  also  bishop,  and  could 
not  found  a  feudal  dynasty.  The  Channel  Islands 
were  originally  part  of  the  Norman  duchy,  and  claim 
to  have  conquered  England  rather  than  to  have 
been  conquered  by  England.  They  had  been  left 
to  their  own  legislative  devices,  probably  because 
they  were  distant  and  their  common-law  was  widely 
different  from  that  of  England.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  they  were  declared  to  be  directly  subject  to 
the  Privy  Council,  but  with  the  brief  exception  of  the 
Protectorate,  they  have  never  been  subject  to  the 
British  Parliament.  And  even  Cromwell  did  not  in- 
corporate that  other  outlying  island,  the  Isle  of  Man, 
of  which  the  Earls  of  Derby  were  the  sovereign  lords. 
The  most  important  feature  of  the  Instrument  of 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      225 

Government  is  its  aspect  as  a  Reform  Bill,  including 
a  redistribution  of  seats  and  a  revision  of  the  fran- 
chise. The  redistribution  was  on  a  drastic  scale.  We 
often  hear  talk  about  the  change  which  has  converted 
England  from  an  agricultural  into  an  urban  community, 
but  the  remark  seems  singularly  inapplicable  to 
Parliamentary  representation.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the 
county  members  numbered  only  seventy  against  nearly 
three  times  that  number  of  borough  members.  In  the 
Long  Parliament  of  1640  the  disproportion  was  even 
greater,  and  there  were  about  four  hundred  and  thirty 
borough  members  to  about  a  hundred  county 
members.  Of  course,  we  must  remember  that  the 
boroughs  of  those  days  were  more  agricultural  than 
they  are  at  present,  but  even  so,  there  seems  to  be  a 
striking  inequality;  the  county  of  York,  for  instance, 
only  returned  two  shire-members,  while  the  boroughs 
in  Yorkshire  returned  twenty-eight.  This  anomaly  the 
Instrument  of  Government  now  proceeded  to  remedy. 
The  borough-members  were  reduced  from  about 
four  hundred  and  thirty  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine,  while  the  county-members  were  increased  from 
a  hundred  to  two  hundred  and  sixty-one.  The  total 
number  of  English  and  Welsh  representatives  was 
reduced  from  five  hundred  and  thirty  to  four  hundred. 
This  was  the  most  sweeping  change  ever  effected  at 
one  blow  in  the  history  of  Parliamentary  representa- 
tion. And  it  was  accompanied  by  a  regular  slaughter 
of  rotten,  or  rather  insignificant,  boroughs  ;  for  they  did 
not  become  really  rotten  until  late  in  the  eighteenth 
century.     The   representatives   of    Cornish    boroughs 

P 


226      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

sank  from  twenty-eight  to  four;  Newport,  Newtown, 
and  Yarmouth  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  lost  their 
members ;  and  the  island,  which  had  returned  six 
representatives  to  Parliament,  had  now  to  be  content 
with  two.  Old  Sarum  disappeared,  Gatton,  Gram- 
pound,  and  a  host  of  other  hoary  antiquities.  On  the 
other  hand,  Yorkshire  was  divided  into  its  three 
Ridings  for  the  purposes  of  Parliamentary  representa- 
tion ;  and  the  West  Riding  was  given  six  members, 
and  each  of  the  other  Ridings  four.  Essex  was 
allotted  thirteen  county  members  instead  of  two ; 
Devon,  Kent,  and  Somerset  eleven  each ;  and  Lincoln, 
Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Wiltshire  ten  apiece  instead  of 
two.  These  reforms  were  all  annulled  at  the  Restora- 
tion of  Charles  II. ;  every  insignificant  borough  was 
restored  with  him  ;  and  among  the  benefits  which  we 
owe  to  the  Restoration  are  the  weakness  and  corrup- 
tion of  Parliament  down  to  1832,  the  dominance  of 
George  ill.,  perhaps  the  loss  of  the  colonies  of  North 
America,  and  the  postponement  till  the  nineteenth 
century  of  the  real  supremacy  of  the  House  of 
Commons  and  all  that  is  involved  therein.  For 
George  ill.  and  the  Whig  and  Tory  landlords  could 
not  have  pocketed  the  great  county  constituencies 
created  by  Cromwell,  as  they  did  the  tiny  boroughs 
restored  by  Charles  II.  Nabobs  could  not  have  bribed 
the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  as  they  did  Old  Sarum  ; 
and  without  these  aids  at  his  disposal,  George  III. 
could  not  have  kept  Chatham  out  of  power  and  Lord 
North  in  office. 
The  question  of  the  franchise  was  not  treated  in  so 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      227 

radical  a  manner.  In  fact,  the  borough  franchise,  with 
all  its  absurdities  and  anomalies,  was  left  alone  ;  pro- 
bably it  was  thought  too  thorny  a  subject  to  be  tackled 
in  the  time  at  the  disposal  of  the  framers  of  this  Con- 
stitution. But  a  thorough-going  change  was  effected 
in  the  county  franchise.  As  I  have  said  before,  the 
qualification  for  a  Parliamentary  vote  in  the  counties 
was  the  possession  of  a  forty-shilling  freehold.  This 
sum  had  originally  represented  something  like  forty 
pounds  of  our  present  currency,  but  by  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century  it  had  sunk  to  considerably 
less  than  a  quarter  of  that  value,  so  that  it  was  quite 
possible  to  be  a  poor  man  and  yet  to  have  a  county 
vote.  On  the  other  hand,  the  vast  majority  of  the 
rural  population  was  shut  out  altogether,  because 
copyhold  and  leasehold  were  more  plentiful  than  free- 
hold, and  no  amount  of  copyhold  or  leasehold  entitled 
its  holder  to  a  vote.  This  anomalous  discrimination 
was  abolished  by  the  Instrument  of  Government^  and 
the  county  franchise  was  made  to  depend  on  the  one 
uniform  qualification  of  a  real  or  personal  estate  to  the 
value  of  ;^200.  This  would,  of  course,  exclude  all 
agricultural  labourers,  but  it  probably  enfranchised  a 
great  many  more  voters  than  it  disfranchised. 

There  is  one  other  point  about  this  Constitution 
which  should,  perhaps,  be  noticed.  It  left  out  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  the  omission  was  assuredly  not 
accidental.  The  Long  Parliament  in  1649  had  de- 
clared that  the  Commons  of  England  assembled  in 
Parliament  had  found  by  too  long  experience  that  the 
House  of  Lords  was  useless  and  dangerous  to  the 


228      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

people  of  England,  and  had  decreed  that  it  should 
thenceforth  be  wholly  abolished  and  taken  away,  while 
individual  peers  might,  if  they  could,  get  elected  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  This  decision,  after  five 
years'  experience,  was  respected  by  the  Instrument  of 
Government ;  but  it  is  no  part  of  my  business  in  this 
place  to  express  an  opinion  whether  this  was  or  was 
not,  like  other  provisions  of  that  document,  an  intelli- 
gent anticipation  of  future  reforms.  You  may  either 
lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  England  had  since  1649 
prospered,  especially  in  its  repute  abroad,  in  spite  of  its 
lack  of  hereditary  and  noble  councillors ;  or  you  may 
emphasise  the  fact  that  Cromwell,  nevertheless,  saw 
fit  three  years  later  to  restore  a  Second  Chamber ;  or 
you  may,  thirdly,  combine  the  two  observations,  and 
deduce  some  conclusion  from  the  fact  that,  although 
Cromwell  restored  a  Second  Chamber,  it  was  not 
exactly  our  House  of  Lords. 

But  this  Constitution,  admirable  though  it  may  have 
been  in  some  or,  perhaps,  in  most  respects,  was  marred 
by  its  conscious  want  of  trust  in  the  people,  for  whom 
it  was  intended.  To  start  with,  it  embodied  a  vast 
number  of  penal  disqualifications.  Every  one  who 
had  aided,  advised,  assisted,  or  abetted  in  any  war 
against  the  Parliament  since  the  first  day  of  January 
1 64 1  was  disqualified  from  voting  or  being  elected  for 
the  first  four  triennial  Parliaments  after  the  Instrument 
came  into  force  ;  all  who  professed  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion,  or  had  taken  part  in  the  Irish  Rebellion,  were 
disqualified  for  ever.  For  the  first  three  Parliaments, 
moreover,  the  returns  were  to  be  made  to  the  Council 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      229 

of  State,  and  members  of  Parliament  were  only  to  be 
admitted  if  the  Council  approved  of  them.  And  in 
the  returns  there  was  to  be  a  stipulation  that  the 
persons  elected  should  have  no  power  to  alter  the 
government,  as  settled  by  the  Instrument^  in  one  single 
person  and  a  Parliament. 

This  last  provision  at  once  proved  a  bone  of  con- 
tention. The  arbitrary  exclusion  of  a  hundred  mem- 
bers by  the  Council  had  not  been  sufficiently  drastic 
a  purge,  and  others  began  to  impugn  the  validity  of 
the  restrictions  imposed  on  their  liberty  of  debate  and 
powers  of  action.  By  what  authority,  they  asked,  had 
these  things  been  done?  Who  had  the  right  to  set 
up  fundamental  law  beyond  their  reach?  And  they 
set  to  work  to  discuss  the  Instrument  of  Government^ 
which,  according  to  Cromwell's  idea  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, they  had  no  power  to  alter.  They  insisted  on 
debating  this  Constitution  instead  of  passing  the 
measures  Cromwell  wanted.  He  possessed  his  soul 
in  such  patience  as  he  could  muster  until  the  five 
months  had  elapsed  within  which  he  could  not,  by 
the  Instrument^  dissolve  the  Parliament;  and  then  he 
himself  went  down  to  the  House  and  made  a  speech. 
He  spoke  rather  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.  Never  had 
his  hopes  beat  higher  than  when  he  first  met  this 
Parliament,  never  had  they  been  so  keenly  dis- 
appointed. *  Instead  of  peace  and  settlement,  instead 
of  mercy  and  truth  being  brought  together,  righteous- 
ness and  peace  kissing  each  other,  by  reconciling  the 
honest  people  of  these  nations,  and  settling  the  woeful 
distempers  that  are  among  us — which  had  been  glorious 


230      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

things  and  worthy  of  Christians  to  have  proposed — 
weeds  and  nettles,  briars  and  thorns  have  thriven 
under  your  shadow.  Dissettlement  and  division,  dis- 
content and  dissatisfaction,  together  with  real  dangers 
to  the  whole,  has  been  more  multiplied  within  these 
five  months  of  your  sitting  than  in  some  years  before. 
Foundations  have  also  been  laid  for  the  future  renew- 
ing the  troubles  of  these  nations  by  all  the  enemies 
of  them  abroad  and  at  home.'  Instead  of  construction, 
they  had  been  bent  on  destruction  ;  they  had  sought 
the  overthrow  of  the  Instrument ;  they  had  endeavoured 
to  make  the  Army  discontented  by  refusing  to  pro- 
vide its  arrears  of  pay,  and  to  make  it  odious  to  the 
nation  by  compelling  it  to  live  at  free  quarters.  The 
partisans  of  Charles  Stuart  made  capital  out  of  the 
Parliament,  and  laid  plots  of  all  kinds.  And  worse 
than  the  Royalists  in  Oliver's  eyes  were  the  Levellers 
or  Commonwealth's  Men,  who  *  have  been  and  yet  are 
endeavouring  to  put  us  into  blood  and  into  confusion 
— more  desperate  and  dangerous  confusion  than  Eng- 
land ever  yet  saw.  And  I  must  say  ...  it  is  some 
satisfaction,  if  a  Commonwealth  must  perish,  that  it 
perish  by  men,  and  not  by  the  hands  of  persons  differ- 
ing little  from  beasts.  That  if  it  must  needs  suffer, 
it  should  rather  suffer  from  rich  men  than  from  poor 
men,  who,  as  Solomon  says,  "  when  they  oppress,  leave 
nothing  behind  them,  but  are  as  a  sweeping  rain." 
Now  such  as  these  have  grown  up  under  your  shadow.' 
Cromwell  was  a  very  middle-class  and  bourgeois  re- 
volutionary, and  with  this  fear  and  detestation  of  the 
lower  classes,  there  is  little  wonder  that   he  limited 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      231 

the  franchise  in  the  counties  to  the  possessors  of  a 
£200  property  qualification.  He  made  no  appeal  to 
the  poorer  classes,  and  this  must  be  taken  into  account 
when  estimating  the  causes  of  the  failure  of  the  Puritan 
system.  Better,  thought  Cromwell,  the  Stuarts  than 
the  Levellers  ;  better,  thought  the  Levellers,  the  Stuarts 
than  Oliver  Cromwell. 

Both  dangers  were  attributed  by  the  Protector  to 
the  folly  of  his  Parliament.  '  You  have  wholly  elapsed 
your  time,'  he  exclaimed,  *  and  done  just  nothing  ' ;  and 
the  concluding  moral  of  his  speech  was  a  dissolution. 

The  legal  wig  had  fallen  off;  there  was  only  left  the 
naked  sword  ;  and  England  was  divided  up  into  eleven 
districts,  ruled  by  Major- Generals.  Nothing  could 
have  been  less  likely  to  conciliate  public  opinion,  and 
this,  after  all,  was  Cromwell's  earnest  desire,  if  only 
it  could  be  done  without  a  Restoration  of  the  Stuarts 
and  their  ways.  It  was  quite  obvious  that  the  nation 
preferred  government  by  a  King  and  Parliament  to 
government  by  a  Protector  and  the  Army;  and  it 
was  determined  to  try  the  desperate  expedient  of  a 
Cromwellian  dynasty.  *  They  are  so  highly  incensed,' 
wrote  a  member  of  Parliament, '  against  the  arbitrary 
actings  of  the  major-generals,  that  they  are  greedy  of 
any  power  that  will  be  ruled  and  limited  by  law.' 
Hereditary  monarchy  was  also  to  be  a  protection  for 
the  Protector,  as  well  as  for  those  who  served  him. 
They  would  be  protected  by  Henry  Vli.'s  statute  pro- 
viding that  obedience  to  a  de  facto  king  should  not 
be  treason ;  he  would  be  protected  from  assassination 
by   the   consideration   that   his    removal   would    only 


232      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

place  his  son  upon  his  throne.  But  the  Army  would 
not  have  a  king ;  and  Cromwell  himself  had  in  his 
speech  dissolving  the  last  Parliament  quoted  from 
Ecclesiastes  the  query,  *Who  knoweth  whether  he 
may  beget  a  wise  man  or  a  fool  ? '  So  the  proposed 
Royalty  was  reduced  to  the  power  of  choosing  a  suc- 
cessor. But  the  Humble  Petition  and  Advice,  as  this 
second  constitution  was  called,  had  some  advantages 
over  the  Instrument  of  Government.  It  was  drawn  up 
by  an  elected  Parliament ;  it  was  the  work  of  lawyers 
and  merchants,  and  not  of  Cromwell's  officers.  And, 
although  there  was  to  be  fundamental  law,  that  law 
was  not  to  be  merely  assumed  without  Parliamentary 
authority.  There  were  to  be  two  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  the  '  ancient  and  undoubted  liberties  and 
privileges  of  parliament '  were  declared  to  be  *  the 
birthright  and  inheritance  of  the  people,  wherein  every 
man  is  interested ' ;  they  were  to  be  preserved  and 
maintained.  Elected  members  were  not  to  be  ex- 
cluded except  by  the  decision  of  a  parliamentary 
commission.  The  *  other  House '  was  to  be  chosen 
by  the  Protector  with  the  consent  and  approval  of 
the  House  of  Commons — a  provision  somewhat  similar 
to  those  in  force  in  New  Zealand  and  Canada  at  the 
present  moment.  The  great  officers  of  State  were  to 
be  appointed  with  the  approval  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament ;  no  taxes  were  to  be  levied  without  its 
consent,  and  it  was  to  meet  once  in  three  years  or 
oftener.  The  questions  of  the  franchise  and  the  re- 
distribution of  seats  were  left  for  Parliament  itself  to 
settle — if  ever  it  got  to  business. 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      233 

This  it  never  did.  Cromwell  seemed  to  have  almost 
obtained  what  he  wanted  by  the  Humble  Petition  and 
Advice.  His  authority  rested  at  last  upon  a  constitu- 
tional basis ;  he  was  no  longer  the  mere  nominee  of 
the  Army,  but  the  elect  of  the  people's  representatives. 
He  had,  moreover,  obtained  an  increased  revenue  and 
augmented  powers  by  the  Humble  Petition^  and  he 
opened  this  Parliament  in  January  1658  with  a  speech 
which  reads  like  a  paean  of  thanksgiving.  Four  days 
later  his  tone  was  changed,  and  his  hopes  had  given 
way  to  fears.  His  chief  partisans  had  been  called  up 
to  the  '  other  House,'  to  which  the  Republicans  refused 
to  give  the  title  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the  balance 
in  the  Lower  House  was  almost  even  between  the 
Republican  opposition  and  the  Government.  The 
members,  who  had  been  excluded  while  the  Humble 
Petition  was  being  elaborated,  insisted  on  making  the 
speeches  which  they  would  have  made  then  had  they 
been  present.  They  made  a  dead  set  at  the  new 
House  of  Lords.  The  providence  of  God,  said  one, 
had  delivered  the  people  from  an  authority  which 
could  exercise  a  veto  on  their  resolutions.  *  What  was 
fought  for,'  he  asked,  *  but  to  arrive  at  a  capacity  to 
make  your  own  laws?'  The  House  of  Lords  was  the 
weak  part  of  the  Constitution :  to  the  Republicans  it 
was  the  thin  edge  of  Royalty ;  it  was  disliked  in  the 
Army,  and  schemes  were  afoot  for  a  monster  petition 
calling  on  Fairfax  to  take  the  command  instead  of 
Cromwell.  On  the  4th  of  February  1658  the  Pro- 
tector summoned  both  Houses  to  him.  '  I  would  have 
been  glad,'  he  said, '  to  have  lived  under  my  woodside. 


234      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

to  have  kept  a  flock  of  sheep,  rather  than  undertook 
such  a  government  as  this  is  .  .  .  You  have  not  only- 
disjointed  yourselves,  but  the  whole  nation.  .  .  .  These 
things  tend  to  nothing  else  but  playing  the  King  of 
Scots'  game  (if  I  may  so  call  him) :  and  I  think 
myself  bound  before  God  to  do  what  I  can  to  prevent 
it.  .  .  .  It  hath  been  not  only  your  endeavour  to  per- 
vert the  Army  while  you  have  been  sitting,  and  to 
draw  them  to  state  the  question  about  a  Common- 
wealth ;  but  some  of  you  have  been  enlisting  persons, 
by  commission  of  Charles  Stuart,  to  join  with  any 
insurrection  that  may  be  made.  And  what  is  likely 
to  come  upon  this,  the  enemy  being  ready  to  invade 
us,  but  even  present  blood  and  confusion?  And  if 
this  be  so,  I  do  assign  it  to  this  cause :  your  not  assent- 
ing to  what  you  did  invite  me  to  by  the  Petition  and 
Advice,  as  that  which  might  be  the  settlement  of  the 
nation.  And  if  this  be  the  end  of  your  sitting,  and 
this  be  your  carriage,  I  think  it  high  time  that  an 
end  be  put  to  your  sitting.  And  I  do  dissolve  this 
Parliament.  And  let  God  be  judge  between  you  and 
me.'     '  Amen,'  responded  the  defiant  Republicans. 

It  was  the  last  of  Cromwell's  Parliaments.  Seven 
months  later  Oliver  himself  was  dead  and  Richard  his 
son  reigned  in  his  stead.  *  Who  knoweth,'  Oliver  had 
asked, '  whether  he  may  beget  a  wise  man  or  a  fool  ?  ' 
And  there  followed  eighteen  months  of  bewildering 
revolution.  Then,  amid  the  drunken  frenzy  of  a 
delirious  people,  there  dawned  the  golden  days  of 
good  King  Charles — a  monarch  who  had  no  heart  and 
knew  no  shame,  who  debauched  a  whole  generation, 


CROMWELLIAN  CONSTITUTIONS      235 

who  swindled  the  national  creditors  and  sold  himself 
and  his  country  to  Louis  of  France  for  gold.  The 
Restoration  meant  a  good  deal  else :  it  meant  the 
disintegration  of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  dis- 
memberment of  the  Imperial  Parliament.  It  meant  the 
restoration  of  legislative  independence  to  Scotland, 
Ireland  and  the  Channel  Islands,  the  revival  of  rotten 
boroughs,  the  restoration  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  its 
ancient  and  antiquated  basis,  and  the  restitution  of 
that  'veto  on  the  people's  resolutions.'  It  meant  a 
hideous  moral  reaction,  an  orgy  of  open  shame.  Sin 
sat  enthroned  on  the  sovereign's  seat  and  vice  was 
crowned  king  at  court,  while  the  author  of  PilgrMs 
Progress  lay  twelve  long  years  in  Bedford  county  gaol ; 
and  up  the  Thames  there  rolled  the  roar  of  the  Dutch- 
men's guns  to  where  Oliver's  head  gazed,  a  ghastly 
sight,  from  a  pole  over  Westminster  Hall. 

Against  this  mass  of  corruption,  cruelty,  treason,  and 
shame  there  is  this  to  be  set.  The  Restoration  was  not 
only  the  restoration  of  a  King  with  a  foul  mind  and  an 
evil  heart;  it  was  also  the  restoration  of  Parliament, 
unfettered  by  rigid  law  and  freed  from  the  fear  of  the 
force  of  arms,  a  Parliament  which,  if  not  yet  sovereign, 
was  soon  to  make  its  title  good,  and  slowly  earn  the 
envy  of  the  world.  If  the  Restoration  banished  the 
Ten  Commandments  from  high  places  in  the  land,  it 
also  banished  the  sword  from  the  High  Court  of 
Parliament.  A  mighty  fall  was  there ;  but  the  nation 
fell  back  from  arduous  paths  which  led  towards  barren 
heights,  and  resumed  the  truer  ways  of  peaceful  progress 
towards  the  goals  of  liberty,  self-government,  and  law. 


236      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION 

Probably  all  of  you  are  familiar  with  that  well-known 
quip  of  Horace  Walpole's,  when  he  wrote  in  1759  that 
it  was  necessary  to  ask  each  morning  at  breakfast 
what  victories  there  had  been,  for  fear  of  missing  one. 
It  was  the  year  in  which  the  French  fleets  were  beaten 
off  Lagos  and  Quiberon  Bay  and  the  French  army  at 
the  battle  of  Minden,  the  year  in  which  Guadeloupe 
was  captured  and  Havre  was  bombarded  ;  and  finally, 
the  year  in  which  Wolfe  stormed  the  heights  of  Quebec 
and  laid  Canada  at  England's  feet.  I  think  it  has 
been  described  as  the  birth-year  of  the  British  Empire. 
But  it  was  only  one  in  a  series  of  wonderful  years 
of  victory.  Its  predecessor,  1758,  had  brought  the 
capture  of  Louisburg,  Cape  Breton,  and  Fort  Duquesne; 
its  successor,  1760,  brought  the  battle  of  Wandewash, 
which  secured  Madras  and  completed  the  downfall  of 
the  French  power  in  India;  and  1762  saw  the  capture 
of  the  capitals  of  Cuba  and  of  the  Philippine  Islands. 
If  the  year  1759  was  not  actually  the  birth-year  of  the 
Empire,  it  would  at  least  seem  that  we  could  not  date 
its  advent  into  the  world  very  far  from  the  Seven 
Years'  War. 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  237 

But  we  are  all  inclined  to  attach  a  somewhat 
excessive  importance  to  our  birthdays — until  we  reach 
a  certain  age,  when  we  go  to  the  other  extreme  and 
like  to  ignore  them  altogether  ;  and  the  emphasis  laid 
upon  the  events  of  the  year  1759  has  unduly  diminished 
in  our  eyes  the  importance  of  the  processes  and 
developments  which  preceded  that  year  and  which 
alone  made  possible  its  striking  triumphs.  The  fall  of 
the  French  dominion  in  Canada,  the  establishment  of 
what  was  practically  a  British  monopoly  over  the 
continent  of  North  America,  would  not  have  been 
achieved,  at  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  colonial  and  naval  developments  of 
the  seventeenth ;  and  the  significance  of  seventeenth- 
century  colonial  history  has  been  obscured  by  the 
dramatic  interest  of  the  domestic  history  of  that  time. 
It  is  to  the  importance  of  these  germs  of  empire  in  the 
seventeenth  century  that  I  wish  to  call  your  attention 
now. 

It  was,  in  fact,  during  that  century  that  the  political 
changes  which  followed  upon  the  Seven  Years'  War 
were  preordained.  In  the  same  way  gradual  causes, 
silently  working  through  many  years,  preordain  which 
trees  will  weather  the  storm  and  which  will  be  laid  low. 
The  superficial  observer  is  content  with  the  outward 
manifestation,  and  only  remarks  that  the  tree  fell 
because  the  wind  blew.  But  the  scientific  student,  the 
man  interested  in  forestry  and  in  the  preservation  of 
trees,  wants  to  know  why  some  trees  fell,  while  others 
survived.  He  knows  that  storms  must  come,  and  his 
business  is,  by  taking  thought,  to  see  that  they  do  as 


238      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

little  damage  as  possible.  He  is  not  content  to  take 
the  storms  and  their  effects  as  things  entirely  beyond 
his  understanding  and  control.  So,  the  real  student  of 
history  is  not  content  to  attribute  the  creation  of  the 
Empire  to  the  storm  and  stress  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War.  That  war  raged  over  many  spheres;  it  only 
produced  far-reaching  results  in  some.  Nearly  every 
country  in  Europe  took  part  in  it,  but  it  is  not  a  great 
landmark  in  the  history  of  Russia,  of  Sweden,  or  of 
Spain.  Even  the  principal  actors  were  only  affected 
in  parts  of  their  dominions.  The  boundaries  of  the 
European  States  were  hardly  altered  ;  Austria  failed  to 
recover  Silesia,  but  that  result  was  merely  a  recognition 
of  the  status  quo.  Outside  Europe  the  consequences 
were,  of  course,  more  serious,  but  even  in  America 
there  were  vast  dominions  belonging  to  the  pro- 
tagonists of  the  war  which  remained  almost  unaffected 
by  its  results.  South  and  Central  America  continued 
predominantly  Spanish,  and  the  French  settlements  on 
the  west  coast  of  Africa  were  for  the  most  part  left 
alone.  Why  was  the  Seven  Years'  War  fatal  to  some 
and  not  to  other  dominions  ? 

That  is  the  question  which  we  have  to  answer,  and, 
in  seeking  a  solution,  we  shall  be  led  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  more  than  victories  on  land  and  sea  is  needed 
in  the  building  of  an  empire.  Even  a  battle  is  only 
the  summing-up,  in  a  striking  and  dramatic  way,  of 
a  series  of  causes.  Nelson  could  not  have  won  the 
battle  of  Trafalgar  had  it  not  been  for  the  adminis- 
trative work  of  Earl  St.  Vincent  at  the  Admiralty. 
Indeed,  the  British  Empire  has  not  been  really  won 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  239 

by  military  conquest ;  there  has  been  no  great  con- 
queror in  British  history  like  Alexander,  Hannibal, 
or  Napoleon,  none  of  whom,  it  may  be  incidentally 
remarked,  succeeded  in  founding  a  permanent  empire. 
Military  skill  of  course  is  needed,  but  it  can  only  work 
on  materials  and  conditions  provided  for  it,  and  these 
are  more  important  than  the  military  skill.  Dominion 
acquired  by  the  sword  can  only  be  maintained  by  the 
sword,  and  ultimately  the  sword  always  fails  unless  it 
is  reinforced  by  the  arts  and  crafts  of  peace.  The 
essential  factor  in  the  building  of  the  British  Empire, 
the  factor  which  distinguishes  it  from  the  jerry-built 
empire  of  Napoleon,  is  the  colonist,  not  the  colonel,  the 
settler,  not  the  sergeant.  He  has  wielded  the  spade 
and  trowel,  and  not  the  sword  and  spear ;  he  has 
scattered  seeds,  not  blows,  and  has  returned  bringing 
his  sheaves  with  him — sheaves  of  good  grain,  and  not 
the  tares  of  human  tears  and  curses. 

The  soldier  and  the  sailor  in  1759  were,  then,  only 
putting  the  final  touches  to  a  process  which  had  been 
going  on  for  a  century  and  a  half ;  and,  before  a  blow 
had  been  struck,  or  a  victory  won  in  the  Seven  Years' 
War,  it  had  been  determined  that  North  America 
should  belong  to  English-speaking  races,  and  to  no 
one  else.  This  is  clear  enough  if  we  mentally  look  at 
a  map  of  North  America,  as  it  was  in  1756,  and  con- 
sider the  relative  position  of  the  rival  claimants  to  the 
inheritance.  The  sparse  trading-posts  in  the  far  north, 
Hudson's  Bay,  New  North  Wales,  New  South  Wales, 
and  New  Britain,  as  these  territories  then  were  called, 
did  not  bulk  very  large  in  the  eyes  of  European  states- 


240      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

men  ;  but  they  all  belonged  to  Great  Britain,  and  they 
shut  in  the  French  dominions  to  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  great  lakes  and  the  River  St.  Lawrence.  South 
and  east  of  them  came  the  solid  block  of  the  Thirteen 
Colonies,  stretching  all  along  the  eastern  sea-board 
from  Nova  Scotia  down  to  Florida.  Now,  the  French 
population  numbered  eighty  thousand,  but  the  popula- 
tion of  Virginia  alone  was  two  hundred  thousand,  and 
the  total  white  population  of  the  British  North 
American  colonies  was  a  million  and  a  quarter.  There 
were  fifteen  Britons  for  every  Frenchman,  and  it  is  on 
that  fact  that  I  base  my  statement  that  before  a  shot 
was  fired  in  the  Seven  Years'  War,  the  future  of  North 
America  had  been  already  ear-marked  for  the  British 
race.  Of  course,  the  numerical  proportion  is  not  every- 
thing ;  if  the  Britons  had  been  blacks  or  Red  Indians, 
the  French  might  still  have  won,  though  the  policy  of 
the  old  regime  in  France  discouraged  the  development 
of  colonies  ;  and  the  slow  growth  of  Canada,  while  it 
was  French,  did  not  hold  out  the  prospect  that  the 
French,  if  left  alone,  would  very  quickly  colonise  the 
rest  of  North  America.  But,  as  those  million  and  a 
quarter  were  British  settlers,  the  conclusion  was  fore- 
gone. Whether  there  were  a  Seven  Years'  War  or  not, 
the  million  and  a  quarter  were  destined  to  prevail  over 
the  eighty  thousand. 

Now,  the  all-important  question  to  solve  in  American 
history  is  this  :  How  came  there  to  be  in  1756  a  popula- 
tion of  a  million  and  a  quarter  British  subjects  occupy- 
ing the  whole,  or  almost  the  whole,  sea-board  of  the 
present   United    States?     This   result   had    not   been 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  241 

achieved  without  serious  trouble,  or  as  a  matter  of 
course.  There  had  been  numerous  competitors,  and  a 
century  before  the  Seven  Years'  War  no  one  could 
have  anticipated  such  an  overwhelming  preponderance 
of  Britons  in  North  America  as  had  been  established 
by  1756.  Let  us  take  a  glance  at  the  map  of  North 
America  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  solid  mass  of  British  colonies  does  not  exist ;  and 
the  territory  which  they  afterwards  occupied  presents 
a  variegated  political  appearance.  To  the  north  there 
are,  it  is  true,  the  New  England  colonies,  but  they 
stand  alone.  Their  southern  as  well  as  their  northern 
neighbours  are  foreigners;  while  on  the  north  they 
have  the  French,  on  the  south  they  have  the  Dutch. 
There  is  no  such  place  as  New  York  ;  it  is  called  New 
Amsterdam,  and  is  peopled  by  the  Dutch,  and  is  part 
of  the  New  Netherlands.  Pennsylvania  does  not  exist ; 
and  the  future  States  of  New  Jersey  and  Delaware  are 
a  Swedish  settlement.  Then  at  length  we  come  to 
British  territory  again  in  Maryland  and  Virginia.  But 
they  are  isolated,  and  south  of  them  lies  the  vast  and 
ill-defined  district  of  Florida,  belonging  to  Spain,  and 
west  is  the  still  vaster  and  vaguer  territory  of  Louisiana, 
which  is  French. 

What  will  be  the  final  colour  of  this  mass  of  patch- 
work ?  No  one  can  tell  in  Cromwell's  time,  but  it  is 
fairly  certain  that  the  power  which  can  paint  that 
country  red  will  dominate  the  whole  North  American 
continent.  And  the  question  is  really  decided  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  li.,  not  a  period  with  which  one 
usually  associates  the  idea  of  imperial  expansion.     We 

Q 


242       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

have  heard  a  good  deal  lately  about  Cromwell  and  the 
Empire,  and  attempts  have  been  made  to  set  him  up 
as  the  patron-saint  of  Liberal  Imperialism.  It  is  the 
irony  of  fate  that  far  more  extensive  and  important 
additions  should  have  been  made  to  the  Empire  under 
the  rule  of  the  monarch  who  let  Dutch  guns  blaze 
away  in  the  Medway  and  the  Thames.  The  cession 
of  New  Amsterdam  and  the  New  Netherlands  was  a 
handsome  compensation  for  that  insult.  The  seven- 
teenth has  thus  some  claim  to  stand  beside  the 
eighteenth  century  as  an  important  era  in  the  making 
of  the  Empire. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  how  it  compares  with 
the  sixteenth,  which  is,  I  suppose,  next  to  the 
eighteenth  century  the  most  important  era,  according 
to  the  popular  notion,  in  the  history  of  the  Empire. 
But,  if  we  examine  the  extent  of  the  Empire  at  the 
death  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  we  shall  be  astonished  to 
find  how  slight  it  was,  and  how  meagre  had  been  the 
achievements  of  the  Elizabethan  era,  when  measured 
in  the  number  of  English  colonists  and  in  the  number 
of  square  miles  covered  by  their  settlements.  Henry  vii. 
had,  indeed,  encouraged  Cabot,  who  had  discovered 
Newfoundland;  and  in  1536  a  person  called  Armagil 
Waad  visited  Newfoundland,  Cape  Breton,  and  Penguin 
Island,  for  which  somewhat  slender  achievements  his 
admirers  dubbed  him  the  '  English  Columbus.'  Later 
on,  Frobisher  explored  the  coasts  of  Greenland  and 
Labrador,  and  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  did  actually 
found  a  colony  at  St.  John  in  Newfoundland  in  1583. 
This  was  the  earliest  British  colony  founded  in  North 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  243 

America ;  but  the  colonists  were  many  of  them  taken 
from  English  gaols,  and  the  better  class,  which  con- 
sisted of  sailors  more  useful  on  sea  than  on  land, 
sought  to  be  taken  home  or  anywhere  rather  than  be 
left  on  that  scene  of  disorder  and  crime.  Gilbert  was 
drowned  on  the  way  home.  '  We  are  as  near  Heaven,' 
he  was  heard  to  say  shortly  before  his  vessel  foundered, 
*  by  sea  as  by  land  ' ;  and  it  was  the  spirit,  rather  than 
the  achievements,  of  the  sea-dogs  which  gives  them 
the  title  of  builders  of  empire.  Raleigh  was  hardly 
more  successful  as  a  founder  of  colonies  than  his  half- 
brother,  Humphrey  Gilbert.  His  first  attempt  to 
colonise  Virginia  in  1585  failed  owing  to  quarrels 
between  the  English  and  the  natives,  and  among  the 
English  leaders  themselves.  A  second  and  larger 
expedition  in  1587  did  leave  eighty-nine  men,  seven- 
teen women,  and  two  children  behind  it;  but  the 
reinforcements  sent  out  in  the  following  year  turned 
pirates;  and  when,  in  1589,  tardy  relief  did  actually 
reach  America,  the  original  colonists  had  disappeared, 
and  no  trace  of  them  was  ever  afterwards  found.  So 
that,  in  1603,  the  net  English  achievement  in  the  way 
of  a  colonial  empire  was  practically  nil. 

Nor,  indeed,  had  these  expeditions  gone  forth  as  a 
rule  with  any  idea  of  founding  a  colonial  empire  at  all. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  successful  colonial 
empire  ever  has  been  founded  with  that  as  the  original 
idea.  It  is  much  talked  of,  but  it  has  never  been  a 
very  powerful  motive,  and  those  who  talk  loudest  about 
expanding  the  Empire  generally  return  to  the  haven 
of  Park  Lane  as  soon  as  they  have  made  their  pile. 


244      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Colonies  designed  under  stress  of  the  imperial  idea, 
like  those  of  Germany  in  South- West  Africa,  or  those 
of  France  in  North  Africa,  do  not  flourish,  and  are  not 
really  colonies  at  all.  Some  more  definite  and  practical 
motive  than  imperial  sentiment  has  to  be  found  before 
men  will  undergo  the  hardships  involved  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  new  communities  in  distant  lands.  In 
recent  times  the  real  basis  of  imperial  sentiment  has 
been  the  commercial  instinct ;  the  flag  has  been  valued 
as  a  commercial  asset,  and  some  pronounced  im- 
perialists have  been  found  to  have  made  not  incon- 
siderable, and  sometimes  improper,  profits  out  of  their 
country  in  times  of  war.  On  the  eve  of  the  War  of 
American  Independence  Horace  Walpole  writes  that 
Birmingham  was  enthusiastically  in  its  favour  because 
it  had  a  small-arms  manufactory.  But  this  kind  of 
spirit  has  been  more  apt  at  breaking  up  than  at  found- 
ing empires  ;  and  the  signal  failure  of  the  Elizabethans 
to  found  colonies  must  be  ascribed,  in  part  at  least,  to 
the  fact  that  their  motive  was  gain,  either  from  gold 
mines  or  from  commerce.  They  wanted,  not  the  white 
man's  burden,  but  the  white  man's  percentages  ;  they 
were  more  concerned  with  interest  than  with  principle  ; 
their  ideal  was,  not  Empire,  but  Eldorado.  They  pre- 
ferred coloured  labour  to  white  because  it  was  cheaper, 
and  so  they  started  the  negro  slave  trade.  That  curse 
has  come  home  to  roost ;  and  it  has  been  calculated 
that  by  the  end  of  the  present  century  there  may  be  a 
population  of  a  hundred  million  negroes  in  the  United 
States.  That  means  a  race  war,  of  which  the  lawless 
lynchings  and  burnings  of  to-day  are  but  a  faint  and 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  245 

distant  rumble.  Repentance  has  come,  of  a  sort ;  but 
it  has  not  wiped  out  the  effects  of  the  original  crime 
of  thinking  that  dividends  exalt  a  nation  more  than 
righteousness. 

The  negro  slaves  were  intended  for  the  mines  of 
Mexico  and  Peru,  which  were  in  Spanish  hands,  and 
even  the  trade  in  them  was  English  in  only  a  minor 
degree.  Nor  is  the  piracy  charged  against  the  English 
sea-dogs  a  very  disgraceful  accusation.  Piracy  was  the 
only  form  of  trade  with  the  Indies  open  to  English- 
men, for  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  tried  to  exclude 
the  traders  of  all  other  nations  but  themselves  from 
American  commerce.  They  based  their  claim  to 
monopoly  on  the  award  of  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  and 
the  only  right  the  Pope  had  to  decide  such  a  question 
was  derived  from  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  and 
that  was  forged.  There  was  no  reason  why  the 
English,  who  had  repudiated  the  authority  of  the 
Pope  in  religious  matters,  should  respect  it  in  a  far 
more  doubtful  sphere.  For  all  that,  their  motives 
were  anything  but  lofty;  fortunately,  they  did  not 
find  the  gold  they  sought,  or  England  would  probably 
have  adopted  the  strange  delusion  of  the  Spaniards 
that  gold  and  silver  were  the  only  forms  of  wealth. 
But  gold  and  silver  were  their  object,  and  Queen 
Elizabeth's  imperial  enthusiasm  always  waxed  or 
waned  according  to  the  booty  brought  into  her 
coffers  by  Drake  or  other  bold,  bad  buccaneers.  As 
early  as  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  one  Richard  Eden 
had  pointed  out  that,  if  England  had  only  been 
awake  to  her  interests,  the  bullion  in  the  royal  ware- 


246      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

house   at   Seville   might  have   been   reposing  in   the 
Tower. 

Next  to  gold-mines,  trade-routes  were  the  object  of 
discovery ;  and  it  was  their  desire  to  find  a  short-cut 
to  the  Indies  which  led  Willoughby  and  Chancellor 
towards  the  White  Sea,  Frobisher,  Bafifin,  Davis,  and 
Hudson  to  the  straits  and  bays  which  bear  their  names 
to-day.  Even  the  earliest  settlements  of  Gilbert  and 
Raleigh  were  perhaps  designed  as  outposts  against  the 
Spaniards  rather  than  as  colonies ;  and  the  French 
were,  curiously  enough,  in  advance  of  the  English  in 
their  ideas  of  colonisation.  In  1506  a  Frenchman  had 
first  entered  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  named  the  island 
at  the  mouth  of  it  Cape  Breton — a  puzzling  name, 
which  so  struck  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  that,  when  as 
Secretary  of  State  he  first  learnt  that  Cape  Breton  was 
an  island,  he  rushed  off  to  communicate  the  astonishing 
intelligence  to  Pitt.  Then,  in  1534,  Jacques  Cartier 
of  St.  Malo  sailed  up  the  river,  and  determined  to  found 
a  colony  in  the  country.  In  1 540  he  led  a  band  of  two 
hundred  French  colonists  thither,  and  they  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  Canadian  nation.  Next  the  great 
Huguenot  leader,  the  Admiral  Coligny,  took  up  the 
idea  of  forming  colonies  as  a  refuge  for  persecuted 
Protestants ;  but  the  wars  of  religion  in  France 
absorbed  his  energies,  and  that  idea  came  to  nothing 
for  the  time,  though  other  Frenchmen  sought  and 
gained  a  temporary  footing  in  the  Spanish  Florida. 
On  the  conclusion  of  the  Civil  Wars  in  1598,  Henry  IV. 
again  took  up  the  idea;  in  1603  Champlain  founded 
Quebec,  and  a  few  years  afterwards  Montreal.    Canada 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  247 

was  under  weigh  before  the  United  States  ;  and  the 
spacious  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth  did  not  include 
colonial  expansion. 

The  foundations  of  empire  were,  in  fact,  laid  in  the 
seventeenth  and  not  in  the  sixteenth  century  ;  and  they 
were  laid  by  men  who  would  never  have  been  called, 
or  have  called  themselves,  imperialists.  Their  motive 
was  not  to  expand,  but  to  escape,  the  England  of 
James  I.,  and  these  pioneers  and  colonists  had  no  wish 
to  reproduce  the  conditions  they  had  left  behind. 
They  wanted  something  different,  and  something  better. 
They  went  for  something  which  they  prized  more 
highly  than  gold  or  silver ;  they  would  not  turn  back 
because  they  did  not  see  a  dividend  in  sight ;  their 
minds  were  stayed  on  religious  conviction,  and  not 
puffed  up  with  imperial  pride.  *  Lest  we  forget '  was 
their  daily  thought ;  it  was  not  reserved  for  show  at 
a  Diamond  Jubilee,  and  then  drowned  in  a  greater 
debauch  than  ever.  They  were  of  the  stuff  of  which 
nations  are  made ;  power  came  to  them  in  the  fulness 
of  time,  and  prosperity  in  good  measure,  not  because 
they  sought  it,  but  because  they  sought  first  of  all 
righteousness  according  to  their  lights. 

It  was  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  their  children  who 
made  the  New  England  across  the  sea  ;  but  they  were 
not  the  earliest  colonists  in  America  who  went  out  in 
the  reign  of  James  I.  Indeed,  colonisation  of  Virginia, 
on  the  lines  suggested  by  Raleigh,  had  been  attempted 
by  various  people  since  1589,  but  misfortune  dogged 
their  steps ;  and  even  when  the  Virginia  Company  was 
fairly  started  in  1606,  and  a  band  of  settlers  established 


248       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

under  Captain  John  Smith  on  the  James  River,  the 
colonists  proved  unsatisfactory,  and  the  colony  was 
more  than  once  on  the  verge  of  breaking  up.  The 
principal  cause  was  that  the  settlement  was  regarded 
as  a  speculation,  to  be  exploited  entirely  in  the  interests 
of  the  Company.  The  settlers  had  no  property  in.  the 
land  they  tilled,  and  their  profits  were  to  go  to  swell 
the  wealth  of  the  promoters.  It  was  not  until  this 
system  had  been  altered,  and  the  merits  of  Virginia 
tobacco  realised,  that  the  colony  began  to  take  root 
and  flourish.  Nor  did  it  ever  show  the  robust  and 
stubborn  vigour  of  New  England,  which  within  a 
generation  had  begotten  four  of  the  original  thirteen 
United  States.  The  tobacco  planters  of  Virginia,  with 
their  large  estates,  their  slaves,  and  their  comparatively 
luxurious  existence,  would  by  themselves  have  been  a 
poor  protection  against  the  French  and  Dutch  rivals  of 
the  British  colonists.  The  Puritan  settlers  were  the 
backbone  of  the  English  power ;  they  were  organised 
in  townships,  not  plantations  ;  and  they  were  a  demo- 
cratic rather  than  an  aristocratic  society. 

Not  that  there  was  anything  idyllic  about  these  New 
England  colonies.  They  soon  showed  that  they  con- 
ceived of  liberty  as  being  a  privilege,  and  not  a  common 
right  to  be  enjoyed  by  all  alike.  Religious  toleration 
was  a  thing  they  wanted  for  themselves  and  not  for 
others ;  and  uniformity  was  to  be  as  rigid  in  the  New 
England  as  it  had  been  in  the  Old.  The  difference 
was,  that  they  were  to  do  the  persecution  instead  of 
being  persecuted  ;  and  Roger  Williams  had  to  flee  from 
them  as  they  had  fled  from  Laud.     Their  ideal  was 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  249 

borrowed  from  Geneva  of  the  Calvinists,  where  Church 
and  State  were  one  ;  where  only  the  orthodox  were 
entitled  to  a  vote ;  where  every  ecclesiastical  offence 
was  an  act  of  civil  disobedience ;  where  obstinate 
refusal  to  communicate  and  continued  or  frivolous 
absence  from  church  were  punishable  crimes ;  where 
the  creed  was  a  law  of  the  State,  and  heresy  as  much  an 
offence  as  immorality.  It  was  no  place  for  any  one  but 
a  Puritan  ;  and  when  Roman  Catholics  also  sought  an 
asylum  from  English  persecution  in  America,  they 
wisely  set  up  for  themselves.  Their  leader,  Sir  George 
Calvert,  afterwards  Lord  Baltimore,  as  early  as  161 2 
had  obtained  a  patent  of  Newfoundland  from  James  i. ; 
but  the  rigour  of  the  climate  and  the  attacks  of  the 
French  in  Canada  during  the  war  of  1626-9  induced 
his  followers  to  remove  to  Maryland,  named  after 
Henrietta  Maria,  with  its  capital  called  Baltimore, 
from  the  title  of  its  founder. 

Meanwhile  rivals  from  other  European  countries  had 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  In  1614  the  Dutch,  relieved 
by  the  Twelve  Years'  Truce  from  their  war  with  Spain, 
turned  their  attention  to  the  New  World,  and  founded 
the  New  Netherlands,  with  their  two  chief  settlements 
at  New  Amsterdam  and  Fort  Orange,  between  New 
England  and  Virginia.  On  the  river  Delaware,  too, 
Sweden  established  a  colony  called  New  Sweden,  which 
was  doomed  to  a  brief  and  undistinguished  career- 
More  important  was  the  development  of  the  French 
power  in  the  north.  In  1604  the  foundation  of  Quebec 
and  Montreal  had  been  followed  by  the  settlement  of  a 
colony  of  fishermen  and  woodcutters  at  Port  Royal, 


250      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

now  called  Annapolis,  on  the  Bay  of  Fundy — a  settle- 
ment which  was  destroyed  by  an  expedition  from 
Virginia  in  1613.  This  exploit  was  followed  up  in 
162 1  by  James  l.'s  grant  to  Sir  William  Alexander, 
afterwards  Earl  of  Stirling,  of  practically  the  whole  of 
Canada,  under  the  name  of  New  Scotland  or  Nova 
Scotia.  The  patent  conferred  enormous  rights  upon 
Alexander — on  paper ;  but  to  induce  colonists  to  settle 
was  another  matter,  especially  when  the  King  wanted 
also  to  make  money  out  of  the  transaction.  James's 
favourite  bauble  was  dangled  before  men's  eyes :  every 
one  who  would  pay  the  King  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
should  receive  a  grant  of  land  three  miles  long  and 
two  miles  broad,  and  a  baronetcy.  Thus  that  slighted 
order  of  Nova  Scotia  Baronets  came  into  existence,  and 
a  barren  land  was  to  bloom  with  baronets. 

But  this  grant  might  have  had  important  conse- 
quences. In  1626,  owing  to  the  foolish  policy  of 
Buckingham  and  Charles  I.,  England  was  involved  in 
war  with  France.  With  both  countries  claiming  the 
greater  part  of  Canada,  it  was  natural  that  the  war 
should  spread  to  North  America;  and  then  a  little- 
known  event  took  place.  Wolfe  was  not  the  first 
Briton  who  conquered  Quebec  for  the  British  Crown. 
He  was  anticipated  in  1628  by  an  Englishman  of  Derby- 
shire, named  Gervase  Kirke,  who  has  not  even  found 
a  place  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.  Kirke 
had  lived  at  Dieppe,  and  had  there  married  a  French- 
woman ;  but  in  spite  of  all  temptations  he  remained 
an  Englishman,  and  used  whatever  knowledge  he  had 
acquired  from  his  French  connections  in  the  interests 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  251 

of  his  native  land  and  of  himself.  In  1627  he  obtained 
letters  of  marque  from  Charles  I.,  fitted  out  three  ships, 
commanded  by  his  three  sons,  and  sailed  for  the 
St.  Lawrence.  There  were  many  Huguenots  among 
the  crews  who,  having  been  expelled  from  New  France 
as  settlers,  returned  as  enemies.  There  Kirke  captured 
or  sank  the  whole  French  naval  force  in  the  river. 
Sailing  back  to  England  with  their  spoil,  they  returned 
in  the  following  year  to  complete  their  conquest.  The 
French  garrison  had  been  reduced  almost  to  a  state  of 
starvation,  and  the  governor  could  do  nothing  except 
arrange  the  terms  of  a  dignified  surrender.  Quebec 
and  the  whole  of  New  France  passed  into  English 
hands,  and  remained  under  English  control  for  three 
years.  Then  came  peace,  and  all  was  given  back  to 
France.  Charles  and  his  advisers  had  no  notion  of  a 
colonial  policy  at  all,  or  of  the  potential  value  of 
Canada.  His  financial  necessities  were  much  more 
important  in  his  eyes,  and  they  were  caused  by  his 
attempt  to  rule  in  defiance  of  his  Parliament.  The 
motive  which  induced  him  to  surrender  the  greater 
part  of  North  America  was  the  payment  by  France  of 
the  residue  of  the  dowry  of  Henrietta  Maria — some 
sixty  thousand  pounds — which  would  relieve  him  of 
the  immediate  necessity  of  appealing  for  Parliamentary 
grants.  The  Kirkes  and  their  associates,  who  had 
conquered  Canada  at  their  own  expense,  were  not 
repaid,  except  by  the  grant  of  a  barren  knighthood 
to  David  Kirke,  which  cost  Charles  nothing.  That 
was  his  idea  of  empire-building. 

The  services  of  Charles  I.  to  the  American  colonies 


252      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

were,  however,  great,  but  they  were  undesigned.  The 
idea  of  New  England  as  a  refuge  from  the  Old  had  by 
this  time  taken  root,  and  the  more  unbearable  Charles 
and  Laud  made  things  at  home,  the  greater  numbers 
flocked  abroad ;  and  fortunately  the  Stuarts  were 
unable  to  exclude  religious  dissidents  from  their 
colonies  as  the  French  government  did  the  Huguenots 
from  theirs.  Over  twenty  thousand  colonists  are 
computed  to  have  sailed  from  Old  to  New  England 
between  the  accession  of  Charles  I.  and  the  opening 
of  the  Long  Parliament  in  1640;  and  one  of  the 
unrehearsed  effects  of  the  activity  of  that  Parliament 
was  to  check  this  stream  of  emigration.  These 
colonists  formed  a  number  of  almost  independent 
municipalities,  which  were  a  peculiar  feature  of  New 
England,  but  resembled  the  municipalities  of  the 
United  Provinces  ;  for  those  provinces  not  only  formed 
a  federation,  but  each  province  was  itself  a  federation 
of  towns  and  cities.  So  in  New  England  each  munici- 
pality was  sovereign  in  itself,  and  stood  to  the  colony 
or  State  in  much  the  same  relation  as  the  individual 
State  now  stands  to  the  American  Confederation. 

But  in  1643  the  need  was  felt  of  a  wider  union. 
There  had  been  differences  with  the  Dutch ;  the 
Indians  were  supposed  to  be  hostile ;  there  was  always 
the  French  danger  in  the  north ;  and  there  might  be 
advantages  in  presenting  a  united  front  to  the 
authorities  at  home.  So  at  Boston  in  May  1643  ^ 
confederacy  called  the  United  Colonies  of  New  Eng- 
land was  formed.  Two  commissioners  from  each  of 
the  four  federating  colonies  were  to  meet  annually,  or 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  253 

oftener,  if  necessary,  and  to  choose  a  President  from 
among  themselves.  No  war  was  to  be  declared  by  a 
colony  without  the  consent  of  the  federal  commis- 
sioners, and  the  expenses  were  to  be  apportioned 
among  the  colonies  according  to  their  population. 
Mutual  arrangements  were  made  for  the  surrender  of 
fugitive  criminals  and  for  the  recognition  of  the  judicial 
decisions  of  the  contracting  colonies ;  and  the  main- 
tenance of '  the  truth  and  liberties  of  the  Gospel '  was 
declared  to  be  the  object  of  the  Federation.  Not  a 
few  of  these  provisions  were  anticipations  of  the 
famous  American  Constitution  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  later ;  but  more  important  was  the  fact  that 
these  colonies  should  be  claiming  to  act  and  acting 
just  as  though  they  were  sovereign  states,  without  the 
least  reference  to  the  powers  from  whom  they  had 
derived  their  existence  and  authority.  Of  course, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  at  this  moment  no 
English  government  was  in  a  position  to  intervene 
and  restrain  this  independent  tendency.  But  it 
should  be  noted  that  this  tendency  to  confederate 
and  claim  the  right  of  almost  independent  powers  of 
self-government  was  an  early  and  a  gradual  growth ; 
it  was  not,  as  is  sometimes  represented,  the  sudden 
outcome  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  which  relieved  the 
English  colonies  from  all  fear  of  molestation  on  the 
part  of  the  French,  and,  by  thus  rendering  them 
independent  of  home  protection,  made  them  more 
impatient  of  home  control. 

There  was  little  need  of  protection  against  the  home 
government  during   the  Commonwealth  and  Protec- 


254       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

torate;  for  Puritan  called  unto  Puritan  and  both 
responded.  In  1642  Parliament  had  passed  a  resolu- 
tion freeing  New  England  from  the  import  and  export 
duties  levied  on  other  colonies  ;  and  in  1644  Massa- 
chusetts made  a  law  that  any  one  seeking  to  raise  a 
party  for  the  King  should  be  treated  as  an  enemy 
to  the  State.  Massachusetts,  too,  was  wonderfully 
accommodating  with  regard  to  the  question,  which 
was  raised  at  that  time,  whether  the  English  Parlia- 
ment had  any  authority  over  them,  as  they  were  not 
represented  in  it.  They  had  not  disputed  their 
subjection  to  the  King,  but  the  abolition  of  the 
monarchy  raised  a  different  question.  They  recognised, 
however,  that  Parliament  was  their  best  friend  and 
made  a  curious  admission.  All  land  in  America  had 
at  the  original  grant  been  treated  as  detached  portions 
of  the  manor  of  East  Greenwich  ;  and  the  colonists 
now  conceded  that,  as  they  held  their  lands  of  that 
manor,  they  were  really  represented  in  Parliament  by 
the  knights  of  the  shire  for  Kent.  They  were  of 
another  mind  in  1775. 

With  the  Restoration  this  harmony  was  broken  up. 
The  first  dispute  arose  over  the  Quakers.  The  English 
Privy  Council  forbade  the  colonists  to  inflict  any  bodily 
punishment  on  those  peaceful  people,  and  ordered 
that  they  should  be  sent  to  England  for  their  trial. 
The  colonists  refused,  not  entirely  from  bloodthirsty 
motives,  but  because  concession  would  have  meant  the 
surrender  of  their  right  to  try  all  offences  in  the 
colony.  There  were  differences  also  with  respect  to 
the  King's  demand  that  churchmen  should  be  admitted 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  255 

to  the  franchise,  and  about  the  extradition  of  two 
regicides  who  had  escaped  to  the  colonies.  But 
colonies  outside  the  New  England  Confederation  had 
a  happier  time  than  the  stubborn  Massachusetts ; 
Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  had  their  charters  con- 
firmed and  extended  ;  and  the  planters  of  Virginia  had 
more  in  common  with  the  government  of  Charles  IL  than 
with  their  fellow-countrymen  in  Puritan  New  England. 
These  southern  lands  were  indeed  more  suited  to 
the  royalists,  and  in  1663  the  colony  of  Carolina  was 
founded  to  the  south  of  Virginia  and  named  after 
Charles  II.  It  was  apparently  intended  to  compensate 
those  royalists  who  had  suffered  during  the  Civil  War 
and  had  found  the  Act  of  Oblivion  and  Indemnity 
passed  at  the  Restoration  to  be  an  Act  of  Oblivion  for 
the  King's  friends  and  Indemnity  for  his  enemies.  The 
Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon,  Shaftesbury,  and  others 
were  interested  in  the  movement,  and  the  philosopher, 
John  Locke,  was  associated  with  Shaftesbury  in  draw- 
ing up  a  fundamental  constitution  for  the  colony.  In 
spite  of  the  eminence  of  its  authors  the  Constitution 
was  never  put  in  force,  and,  indeed,  it  had  been  drawn 
up  on  theoretical  principles  with  little  reference  to, 
and  without  any  knowledge  of,  the  practical  require- 
ments of  the  colony  for  which  it  was  intended.  By 
the  time  that  the  colony  was  settled  enough  for  a 
constitution,  it  had  developed  ideas  of  its  own  as  to 
what  that  constitution  should  be  like,  and  the  colonists 
expressed  a  decided  preference  for  the  institutions 
they  had  developed  without  the  assistance  of  political 
philosophers.     Carolina,  which  was  soon  split  up  into 


256      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

North  and  South  Carolina,  marks  the  furthest  extension 
of  the  English  southwards  in  the  seventeenth  century  ; 
and  only  one  more  colony  was  added  in  that  direction 
before  the  great  disruption  came.  That  one  was 
Georgia,  founded  in  1732  by  General  James  Ogle- 
thorpe, partly  as  a  military  outpost  against  the 
Spaniards,  but  chiefly  as  a  benevolent  institution. 
For  Oglethorpe,  driven,  as  Pope  expressed  it,  *by 
vast  benevolence  of  soul '  and  by  a  survey  of  crowded 
debtors'  prisons,  founded  Georgia  as  an  outlet  for 
those  who  would  otherwise  have  spent  their  lives  in 
the  workhouse  or  the  gaol. 

But  the  greatest  colonial  achievement  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  II.  was  the  filling  up  of  the  gulf  between  the 
northern  colonies  of  New  England  and  the  southern 
colonies  of  Carolina,  Virginia,  and  Maryland.  The 
Swedes  had  already  facilitated  this  process  by  suc- 
cumbing to  the  Dutch  in  1664,  but  the  Dutch  left 
deeper  marks  upon  the  history  of  America.  Among 
the  mayors  and  aldermen  of  New  York  we  early  find 
the  names  of  Roosevelt,  Bayard,  Schuyler,  and  Wendell, 
reminding  us  that  not  a  few  of  the  presidents,  ambas- 
sadors, generals,  and  men  of  letters  of  the  United 
States  are  descendants  of  the  Dutch  founders  of  the 
New  Netherlands.  '  Boss  *  and  '  Bowery,'  neither  of 
them  pleasant  terms,  are  both  of  Dutch  derivation, 
and  suggest  that  there  was  a  legacy  of  evil  as  well  as 
one  of  good.  The  acquisition  of  these  Dutch  colonies 
was  one  of  the  most  barefaced  instances  of  the  policy 
of  *  grab '  in  the  history  of  the  Empire.  The  Dutch 
commanded  the  finest   harbour  on  the  eastern  coast 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  257 

of  America,  and  their  river  Hudson  was  the  most 
convenient  waterway  for  the  fur  trade  with  the 
interior ;  but  they  had  enjoyed  these  advantages 
unmolested  and  unchallenged  for  fifty  years,  when  in 
1664,  while  both  nations  were  at  peace,  the  English 
government  suddenly  discovered  that  priority  of  dis- 
covery entitled  it  to  claim  them,  and  resolved  to  put 
the  claim  in  execution.  The  Dutch  could  only  answer 
with  a  declaration  of  war,  but  the  New  Netherlands 
were  in  no  condition  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
expedition  sent  out  under  the  auspices  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  then  Lord  High  Admiral ;  and  New  Amsterdam 
became  New  York  and  Fort  Orange  was  converted 
into  Albany.  In  the  Second  Dutch  War  of  the 
Restoration  these  colonies  were  recovered  by  the 
Dutch,  but  the  recovery  was  only  temporary,  and  at 
the  Treaty  of  Breda  in  1674  they  became  permanently 
parts  of  the  dominions  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
The  acquisition  of  the  New  Netherlands  was,  it  has 
been  truly  said,  a  turning-point  in  American  history. 
It  made  it  possible  for  the  English  colonies  to  become 
one  united  dominion.  But  for  it,  there  would  have  been 
no  solid  mass  of  English  settlements  stretching  from 
Florida  to  Nova  Scotia,  and  hopelessly  outweighing  in 
the  balances  the  colonies  of  France  and  Spain ;  but 
for  it  there  would  have  been  no  War  of  American 
Independence  and  no  United  States. 

There  remains  to  be  said  a  word  as  to  the  form  in 
which  these  new  acquisitions  were  fashioned  by  the 
conquerors,  and  the  expiring  effort  of  the  Stuarts  to 
crush  Puritanism  and  liberty  in  the  New  World.     New 

R 


258      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

York  became  the  property  of  the  Duke,  who  had  full 
power  to  legislate  for  it  on  his  own  authority  without 
the  participation  of  any  popular  representative ;  and 
a  design  has  been  attributed  to  the  Government  of 
Charles  II.  to  centralise  the  administration  of  all  the 
colonies  under  the  control  of  the  Crown.  But  in  1683 
a  constitution  was  granted  to  New  York,  and  no 
serious  attempt  was  made  to  interfere  with  it  during 
the  reign  of  James  II.  Another  part  of  the  New 
Netherlands  was  sold  to  Lord  Berkeley  and  Sir  George 
Carteret,  and  was  called  New  Jersey,  in  honour  of  the 
gallant  defence  of  Jersey  made  by  Carteret  against 
the  Parliamentarians.  All  religious  sects  were  to  enjoy 
liberty  of  worship  and  equal  political  rights  in  this 
colony,  and  it  afforded  a  refuge  for  the  Quakers.  But 
it  was  threatened  in  1686  with  an  attack  by  James  II. 
upon  its  charter,  and  was  only  saved  by  the  Revolu- 
tion. One  of  the  proprietors  of  New  Jersey  was  the 
famous  Quaker,  William  Penn,  who  desired  to  improve 
upon  the  religious  liberty  existing  in  New  Jersey  by 
founding  an  exclusively  Quaker  colony.  With  this 
object  he  obtained  a  grant  from  Charles  II.  of  the 
land  now  known  as  Pennsylvania.  The  distinguish- 
ing feature  of  the  colony  was  its  decent  treatment  of 
the  Indians,  but  it  had  internal  troubles,  and  in  1703 
the  discontented  section  seceded  to  found  the  little 
State  of  Delaware. 

It  was  the  Puritan  colonies  of  New  England  which 
excited  the  animosity  of  the  Stuarts,  and  they  were 
threatened  with  the  fate  which  overtook  their  co- 
religionists at  home.     Their  strongholds  had  been  the 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  259 

corporate  towns,  whose  representatives  in  the  House 
of  Commons  had  made  themselves  so  obnoxious  to 
the  Court  during  the  latter  part  of  Charles's  reign. 
When  that  king  won  his  victory  in  1680,  he  turned 
at  once  against  these  corporations,  and  by  writs  of 
Quo  Warranto  succeeded  in  annulling  their  charters, 
and  filling  their  places  with  royal  nominees.  The 
same  policy  was  then  tried  in  North  America.  Massa- 
chusetts had  given  additional  offence  by  secretly 
purchasing  what  is  now  the  State  of  Maine,  which 
Charles  intended  to  bestow  upon  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth. It  had  also  undoubtedly  turned  its  charter 
to  purposes  which  had  never  been  intended.  In  1683 
the  charter  was  annulled  on  the  ground  that  the  colony 
had  systematically  violated  the  Navigation  Acts,  and 
had  illegally  set  up  a  mint  and  coined  money  on  its 
own  authority.  Rhode  Island  was  induced  to  sur- 
render, and  in  1686  the  charter  of  Connecticut  was 
likewise  declared  forfeit.  All  these  colonies,  with  New 
Hampshire  and  Maine,  were  to  be  united  in  one  State, 
and  to  be  ruled  despotically  by  a  Governor  and  Council 
nominated  by  the  King.  The  Governor,  Sir  Edmund 
Andros,  was  as  incompetent  as  he  was  arbitrary;  and 
when,  in  1688,  there  came  news  of  the  revolution  in 
England,  there  was  another  revolution  as  bloodless 
and  complete  in  the  New  England  across  the  sea. 

The  objects  of  the  two  revolutions  were  much  the 
same,  their  achievement  was  very  different.  The 
legislatures  of  the  American  colonies  wanted  the  same 
powers  of  self-government  as  were  secured  by  the 
English  Parliament.      The  Bill  of  Rights  prohibited 


26o       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

the  levying  of  taxes,  the  raising  or  keeping  of  a  stand- 
ing army  in  the  kingdom  without  consent  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  in  1692  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  passed 
an  Act  declaring  that  no  tax  should  be  levied  in  the 
colony  without  its  own  consent.  The  Bill  of  Rights 
received  the  royal  assent,  the  Massachusetts  bill  did 
not.  The  revolution  in  England  had  made  the  English 
Parliament  master  in  its  own  house  ;  the  revolution 
in  the  colonies  left  them  at  the  arbitrament  of  another. 
There  you  have  the  root  of  the  War  of  Independence. 
And  so  the  causes  of  the  one  disruption  of  the  Empire, 
as  well  as  the  causes  which  made  that  Empire,  may 
be  traced  back  to  the  seventeenth  century;  and  we 
are  brought  back  to  the  thesis  with  which  we  started, 
that  there  is  nothing  really  sudden  in  the  great 
developments  of  history.  Nothing  can  be  explained 
in  human  affairs  without  reference  to  the  past. 

Hence  the  value  of  history ;  it  contains  the  causes 
which  have  produced  the  men,  the  nations,  and  the 
empires  of  to-day ;  it  supplies  the  only  means  whereby 
we  may  understand  the  present,  and  the  only  solid 
ground  on  which  we  can  base  our  forecasts  of  the 
future.  It  is  the  strangest  educational  phenomenon 
of  the  time  that  educational  authorities,  governments, 
universities,  some  county-councils,  and  most  head- 
masters should  be  under  the  delusion  that  they  can 
turn  out  efficient  citizens  without  the  glimmering  of 
an  idea  as  to  the  causes  which  have  made  them  what 
they  are.  The  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  did  not  know 
that  Cape  Breton  was  an  island,  has  his  counterpart 
in  the  Government  departments  of  to-day ;  and  it  is 


COLONIAL  EXPANSION  261 

neglect  of  historical  studies  which  often  makes  the 
brilliant  man  of  science  as  inefficient  in  the  sphere  of 
politics  as  is  the  politician  in  the  world  of  science. 
No  one,  however,  is  called  upon  to  deal  with  scientific 
matters  without  some  scientific  training ;  but  every 
one  is  called  upon  to  play  his  part  as  a  citizen  of  the 
Empire,  and  every  one  should  possess  some  mental 
qualification  for  the  duties  which  his  country  expects 
him  to  perform. 


262   FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 


XI 


THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   LONDON   AND   THE  STUDY 
OF  HISTORY  1 

It  may  seem  a  bold  and  hazardous  thing  to  have  put 
two  such  topics  as  the  University  of  London  and  the 
Study  of  History  into  the  title  of  an  hour's  lecture  ; 
for  either  of  them  might  well  afford  material  for  at 
least  a  dozen  discourses.  But  I  have  no  intention  of 
attempting  to  deal  with  either  in  its  general  aspects  ; 
it  is  only  of  the  University  of  London  in  its  relation 
to  the  Study  of  History,  and  of  the  Study  of  History 
in  relation  to  the  University  of  London,  that  I  propose 
to  speak  at  the  present  time.  If  there  be  presumption 
on  my  part  in  approaching  these  subjects  at  all,  a  few 
facts  will,  I  think,  justify  the  view  that  it  is  none  too 
soon  for  some  one  to  call  attention  to  the  position 
which  the  study  of  history  at  present  occupies  in  the 
University  of  London. 

An  eminent  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  University, 

^  This  lecture  was  originally  delivered  at  University  College  in  October 
1904.  During  the  two  and  a  half  years  which  have  elapsed  since  that 
time  some  progress  has  been  made.  The  footnotes  will  indicate  how 
considerable  that  progress  has  been,  and  how  many  of  the  suggestions 
here  discussed  have  been  actually  adopted,  or  are  in  the  process  of 
adoption. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  263 

in  a  recently  published  book  on  London  Education,^ 
refers  more  than  once  to  what  he  describes  as  *  the 
dwindling  Faculty  of  Arts.'  Now  I  am  not  prepared 
to  defend  or  dispute  the  general  truth  of  that  phrase ; 
but  those  of  us  who  are  interested  in  the  study  of 
Modern  History  cannot  conceal  from  ourselves  the 
fact  that  that  school  is  not  in  a  healthy  condition. 
The  University  Calendar  itself  bears  mournful  testi- 
mony to  the  truth  of  this  statement.  1  take  the  Class 
Lists  for  recent  years.  It  was  in  1896,  I  believe,  that 
the  separate  examination  in  History  for  the  B.A. 
Honours  degree  was  established.  In  that  year  there 
were  three  candidates  who  obtained  a  Class;  in  1897 
there  was  one;  in  1898  there  was  one;  in  1899  there 
were  none;  in  1900  there  were  five;  in  1901  there  was 
one;  and  in  1902  there  were  five  again.  The  total  for 
seven  years  is  thus  sixteen,  or  an  average  of  just 
over  two  a  year.  That  does  not  strike  one  as  a  par- 
ticularly brilliant  result ;  but,  when  these  lists  are 
scrutinised  somewhat  more  closely,  the  result  for 
London  itself  is  still  more  distressing ;  for,  of  those 
sixteen  candidates,  only  six  were  produced  by  the 
various  institutions  which  now  make  up  the  teaching 
University  of  London  ;  and  of  those  six  only  one  has 
been  granted  First  Class  Honours — one  candidate  a 
year,  and  one  candidate  in  seven  years  of  First  Class 
standing  2 — surely  extraordinary  figures  for  a  Univer- 

^  Sidney  Webb,  Problems  of  London  Educatioti,  1903. 

2  This  condition  of  things  no  longer  exists.  In  1905  the  first  B.A. 
Honours  Examination  in  Modern  History  for  Internal  Students  {i.e. 
students  who  have  had  three  years'  instruction  at  some  recognised  school  or 
under  some  recognised  teacher  of  the  University)  was  held.     There  were 


264      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

sity  which  aims  at  providing  the  highest  possible 
education  for  a  population  numbering  some  seven 
millions  of  souls,  a  population  many  times  more 
numerous  than  that  which  produced  the  Art  and  the 
Literature,  the  Science  and  the  Statesmanship  of 
Ancient  Athens,  a  population  more  numerous  than 
that  which  made  the  Roman  Empire,  a  population 
more  numerous  than  those  of  the  Holland,  the  Belgium, 
the  Switzerland  of  to-day,  each  of  which  countries 
maintains  several  Universities,  each  with  a  vigorous 
school  of  Modern  History. 

The  conditions,  I  know,  are  totally  different ;  and 
the  more  decisive  of  those  conditions  are  beyond  the 
power  of  any  university,  and  even  of  any  government, 
to  alter  ;  but  some  of  the  existing  obstacles  are  more 
amenable  to  treatment  and  may  be  removed  in  time. 
Among  such  is  the  fact  that  London  University  has 
few  scholarships  and  few  exhibitions  to  give  for 
Modern  History,  while  older  establishments  count 
these  attractions  by  the  score  and  even  by  the  hundred ; 
so  that  a  London  youth  with  a  taste  for  history  is 
pretty  sure  to  be  tempted  elsewhere.  A  second 
obstacle,  which  has  been  painfully  brought  home  to 
my  mind  by  six  years'  experience  as  a  Matriculation 
Examiner,  is  the  fact  that  the  most  promising  history 
candidates  almost  invariably  fail  in  elementary  mathe- 

five  candidates,  of  whom  one  was  placed  in  the  first,  three  in  the  second, 

and  one  in  the  third,  class.  In  1906  the  number  of  candidates  increased 
to  nine,  of  whom  two  were  placed  in  the  first,  five  in  the  second,  and 
two  in  the  third  class.  There  will  probably  be  further  increases  in  1907 
and  1908.  It  seems  unnecessary  to  speak  of  External  Students  ;  for  no 
school  of  History  can  exist  where  there  is  no  University  instruction,  and 
no  access  to  proper  libraries  or  other  sources  of  information. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  265 

matics  or  in  some  other  uncongenial  subject ;  ^  and 
a  third  consists  in  the  fact  that  no  one  can  pass  the 
intermediate  examination  in  Arts  without  a  knowledge 
of  Greek,^  a  prohibition  which  warns  off  the  history- 
course  most  of  those  who  have  not  learnt  Greek  at 
school ;  and  those  who  have  not  learnt  Greek  at  school 
inevitably  constitute  no  small  proportion  of  the  under- 
graduates of  London  University. 

But,  whatever  the  causes,  the  fact  remains  that 
Modern  History  is  at  present  the  Cinderella,  perhaps  I 
should  say  one  of  the  somewhat  numerous  Cinderellas 
of  London  University  who  await  the  advent  of  some 
fairy  prince  to  raise  them  to  their  proper  station  in 
life ;  and,  roughly  speaking,  there  is  no  such  thing  at 
the  present  moment  as  a  History  School  in  the 
University  of  London.^  The  question  then  arises 
whether  there  should  or  should  not  be  such  a  school. 
Well,  I  suppose  that  that  question  is  settled  for  us 

^  The  remedy  for  this  is  not  easy  to  prescribe.  The  difficulty,  which 
is  partly  natural  and  inevitable,  is  magnified  by  the  lack  of  guidance 
from  which  candidates  suffer.  Often  they  have  no  one  to  point  out  their 
weak  subjects  and  make  them  concentrate  on  those  ;  and  there  should  be 
greater  facility  in  the  communications  between  examiners  and  teachers,  a 
facility  which  has  been  established  for  the  higher  examinations  on  the 
Internal  side,  but  is  lacking  for  Matriculation  and  the  External  side. 

"  This  has  now  been  altered ;  an  Arts  candidate  must  take  two 
languages  at  least,  of  which  one  must  be  either  Latin  or  Greek.  Any 
candidate  may  take  both,  but  they  are  not  compulsory.  Historical 
students  can  now  take  those  two  indispensable  modern  languages,  Fiench 
and  German,  which  was  practically  impossible  before  ;  and  professors  of 
Greek  are  no  longer  compelled  to  turn  their  Intermediate  classes  into 
Fourth  Forms. 

"^  This  is  happily  no  longer  true ;  there  are  over  half  a  dozen  students 
doing  post-graduate  research  in  Modern  History,  and  some  have  already 
published  original  work  of  no  slight  value.  One  was  awarded  the  Royal 
Historical  Society's  Alexander  Prize  last  year  (1906). 


266      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

here  in  a  vague  theoretical  way  by  the  definition  of 
University  College  as  '  a  place  of  teaching  and  research 
in  which  wide  academic  culture  is  secured  by  the 
variety  of  the  subjects  taught  in  different  faculties.' 
For  I  imagine  that  no  one  would  exclude  Modern 
History  from  that  variety  of  subjects ;  and  I  assume 
that  the  University  of  London  will  not  be  content  with 
a  narrower  ideal  than  University  College.  Supposing, 
however,  that  a  young  man  were  to  come  and  say,  *  It  is 
all  very  well  to  talk  about  academic  culture,  but  what 
is  the  use  of  history  ?  what  tangible  advantages  can 
you  hold  out  if  I  take  up  the  study  of  history,  spend 
weary  hours  in  attending  your  lectures,  and  precious 
money  in  paying  your  fees  ? '  Well,  I  suppose  it  would 
not  be  in  accordance  with  professorial  practice  or  with 
professional  etiquette,  but  I  should  be  inclined  to  reply, 
taking  the  words  in  the  current  conventional  sense, 
that  history  is  of  absolutely  no  use  whatever.  Yet  it  is 
precisely  on  that  assumption — that  history  is  of  no  use 
whatever — that  I  would  base  its  claim  to  a  prominent 
place  in  the  curricula  of  every  University  under  the 
sun.  It  is  of  no  use  according  to  the  popular  notion 
of  education  ;  because  education  is  vulgarly  thought 
to  be  valuable  mainly,  if  not  solely,  as  a  means  of 
increasing  our  individual  or  our  national  wealth  ;  and 
it  is  to  be  feared  that,  if  education  were  to  be  stripped 
of  that  glamour  and  of  its  theological  delights,  there 
would  be  little  popular  interest  left  in  the  subject.  At 
any  rate,  from  a  point  of  view  of  those  who  regard 
education  as  a  path  to  prosperity  or  even  to  moderate 
comfort,  the    study  of   history   holds    out  only  the 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  267 

feeblest  attractions.  One  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
popular  of  English  historians,  James  Anthony  Froude, 
declared  that  he  would  not  bring  up  a  son  as  an 
historian,  because  the  pecuniary  rewards  for  the  writing 
of  history  did  not  suffice  for  even  a  modest  living. 
Another  historian  recently  dead,  more  learned  if  less 
brilliant  than  Froude,  for  writing  one  of  the  greatest  of 
English  histories  received  less  per  hour  than  the  wage  of 
an  unskilled  manual  labourer.  Gibbon  could  not  have 
written  his  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  nor 
Macaulay  his  History  of  England  if  they  had  not 
possessed  independent  means ;  and  the  first  requisite 
for  an  historian  in  England  is  neither  skill  nor  industry, 
neither  knowledge  of  documents  nor  a  faculty  for 
turning  them  into  literature,  but  the  command  of 
financial  resources  independent  of  those  which  can  be 
derived  from  the  writing  of  history.  These  are  the 
giants  of  the  world  of  history ;  as  for  the  lesser  folk,  I 
am  told  they  eke  out  a  scanty  subsistence  by  trouncing 
each  other's  books  in  the  newspaper  press,  and  spoiling 
each  other's  market  by  selling  their  review  copies  below 
cost  price.  One  of  them  not  long  ago  published  a 
book  at  his  own  expense,  and  after  a  time  went  to 
inquire  how  many  copies  had  been  sold.  The 
publisher,  a  humane  man,  tried  to  parry  the  question  ; 
but  the  author  was  persistent  and  at  length  extorted 
the  answer  '  Four.'  '  Four,'  he  exclaimed,  '  four ! 
Well,  I  made  my  family  buy  three,  but  who  in  the 
world  can  have  bought  the  fourth  ? '  There  is  a 
pathetic  side  to  the  picture.  I  have  heard  tell  of  an 
historical  student  who  has  spent  years  on  a  piece  of 


268   FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

research  without  hope  or  desire  of  profit,  and  now  that 
it  is  completed  is  unable  to  give  it  to  the  world  because 
he  cannot  afford  to  pay  for  its  publication  himself  and 
cannot  persuade  a  publisher  to  take  the  risk.  I  do  not 
refer,  of  course,  to  the  authors  of  school  books,  which 
are  often  a  re-hash  of  old  facts  flavoured  only  with 
an  original  spice  of  error,  and  are  generally  popular 
and  profitable  in  inverse  ratio  to  their  merits. 

I  cannot  therefore  hold  out  the  study  of  history  as 
an  easy  or  pleasant  method  of  making  a  fortune.  It 
is  in  fact  of  little  use  as  technical  instruction  ;  but  is 
that  fact  a  bar  to  its  use  as  a  means  of  liberal  educa- 
tion ?  I  think  not.  For  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is 
a  deep  and  vital  distinction  between  technical  instruc- 
tion and  education  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  ;  and 
the  tendency  to  ignore  and  gloze  over  that  difference 
is  one  of  the  greatest  perils  in  the  path  of  our 
Universities  to-day.  With  technical  instruction  a 
University  has  primarily  nothing  to  do ;  its  main 
object  is  to  educate.  It  should  limit  itself  to  the 
ascertainment  and  propagation  of  knowledge ;  the 
application  of  that  knowledge  to  industrial  and  manu- 
facturing processes  lies  outside  its  proper  sphere  and 
should  be  left  to  other  agencies.  For  surely  the  whole 
justification  of  endowments  is  this :  that  they  enable 
professors  and  others  to  pursue  knowledge  and  investi- 
gate problems  quite  irrespective  of  the  question  whether 
the  results  of  their  researches  are  convertible  into  terms 
of  hard  cash  or  not.  The  application  of  this  ascer- 
tained knowledge  should  be  a  matter  for  commercial 
or  industrial  enterprise  which   would   bring   its   own 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  269 

reward.  One  of  the  worst  features  in  our  higher 
educational  circles  is  that  the  true  raison  d^etre  of 
endowments  is  constantly  being  lost  sight  of,  that 
they  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  right  and  not  as  a 
trust  and  a  privilege,  as  property  without  conditions 
and  duties  attached  to  it,  and  that  the  leisure  which 
its  possession  affords  is  employed  not  in  the  pursuit  of 
unremunerative  research  but  in  the  acquisition  of  gain. 
But  what  is  the  difference  between  technical  instruc- 
tion and  education  proper?  Perhaps  it  is  something 
like  this  :  the  function  and  object  of  technical  instruction 
is,  for  instance,  to  make  a  brewer  a  better  brewer ;  the 
function  of  education  is  to  make  him  a  better  man. 
Technical  instruction  regards  the  means  of  living, 
education  regards  the  end  of  life.  It  seeks  to  make 
men,  not  money,  to  develop  to  the  utmost  possible 
extent  the  faculties,  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual,  of 
mankind,  and  to  enable  them  not  merely  to  exist,  but 
to  live  the  fullest  life  of  which  they  are  capable.  It 
used  to  be  said  in  the  old  days  of  the  struggle  for  the 
extension  of  elementary  education  and  of  the  franchise, 
that  no  amount  of  education  and  no  number  of  votes 
would  enable  the  ploughman  to  drive  a  straighter 
furrow  or  the  dock-labourer  to  heave  a  heavier  load. 
It  was  the  function  of  the  ploughman  to  follow  the 
plough  and  the  cobbler  to  stick  to  his  last.  To  which 
it  was  replied  that  the  ploughman  does  not  live  in 
order  to  plough,  but  ploughs  in  order  to  live ;  and  that 
hard  labour  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  only  a  means. 
The  old  fallacies  still  survive,  and  popular  indifference 
to  education,  as  distinct  from  technical  instruction,  is 


270      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

largely  due  to  the  idea  that  no  amount  of  it  will  enable 
a  man  to  add  one  cubit  to  his  financial  stature.  But 
surely  it  is  no  part  of  the  business  of  a  University  to 
lend  itself  to  errors  like  these.  A  University  should 
set  its  face  against  the  encroachments  and  usurpations 
of  technical  instruction.  The  State  has  more  than  once 
taken  upon  itself  to  raise  the  limit  of  age  at  which 
children  may  be  taken  from  school  and  put  to  earning 
a  livelihood ;  in  the  same  way  a  University  should 
endeavour  to  postpone,  not  accelerate,  the  limit  of  age 
at  which  bread-and-butter  considerations  come  in  to 
dominate,  narrow,  and  check  the  growth  of  the  youthful 
mind.  Not  that  I  wish  to  depreciate  technical  instruc- 
tion ;  the  more  of  it  the  better — in  its  place.  It  is 
excellent  to  have  a  Charlottenburg,  provided  that  your 
Charlottenburg  does  not  usurp  the  place  of  a  University.^ 
It  is  excellent  to  have  technical  instruction,  provided  it 
does  not  oust  liberal  education ;  it  is  excellent  that 
ploughmen  should  be  taught  to  plough  and  dairymaids 
to  milk,  provided  that  such  instruction  is  not  allowed 
to  take  the  place  of  education.  I  know  that  there  are 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  liberal  education  here ;  the 
practical  as  well  as  the  ideal  must  always  be  borne 
in  mind,  and  the  undergraduate  of  London  has  on  an 
average  to  think  of  earning  a  living  earlier  than  the 

1  The  safest  way  of  guarding  against  such  encroachments  would  be  to 
place  both  under  the  same  control.  At  any  rate  to  establish  in  London  a 
vast  Technical  Institute,  side  by  side  and  independent  of  the  University, 
and  to  give  it  the  power  of  granting  degrees,  would  simply  be  the 
destruction  of  the  newly  created  teaching  University  of  London.  The 
Charlottenburg  should  be  a  supplement  to,  and  not  a  rival  of,  the  Uni- 
versity ;  and  a  University  qualification  should  be  made  compulsory  for  all 
Charlottenburg  students. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  271 

undergraduate  elsewhere ;    but  that  is  an  evil   to  be 
diminished  and  not  a  good  to  be  encouraged. 

Another  cause  of  popular  indifference  to  education 
and  comparative  zeal  for  technical  instruction  is  the 
impression  that  England  is  being  outstripped  by  her 
rivals,  and  particularly  by  Germany  and  the  United 
States,  in  the  race  for  commercial  prosperity,  because 
she  has  in  the  past,  and  does  still  in  the  present,  stand 
too  much  on  the  ancient  ways,  and  devotes  to  liberal 
education  the  time  and  energy  which  her  competitors 
spend  in  technical  instruction  and  in  the  application  of 
science  to  commerce  and  industry.  This  assumption, 
I  believe,  is  entirely  erroneous.  Germany  at  any  rate 
does  not  neglect  higher  education  because  it  is  zealous 
in  the  cause  of  technical  instruction.  The  Germans 
are  at  least  as  efficient  in  pure  scholarship  as  they  are 
in  mixed  mathematics  or  in  applied  science.  Take,  for 
example,  the  University  of  Berlin  ;  I  am  told  by  my 
scientific  colleagues  that  that  University  is  perhaps  the 
best  equipped  University  in  the  world  from  a  scientific 
point  of  view,  and  one  would  therefore  hardly  select 
it  as  the  type  of  University  in  which  the  study  of  Arts 
was  the  most  highly  developed.  Yet  what  do  we  find  ? 
Berlin  has  its  six  professors  of  Modern  History,  and, 
perhaps  even  more  important,  its  professor  of  the 
methods  of  historical  research ;  and  there  is  scarcely 
a  University  in  Germany  which  does  not  possess  two 
or  three  professors  of  Modern  History ;  that  appears 
to  be  the  minimum  without  which  a  German  University 
dare  not  look  the  world  in  the  face.  America  is  not 
far  behind  ;  Chicago,  I  believe,  has  seven  professors  of 


272       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

Modern  History,  and  for  an  elucidation  of  the  most 
important  problems  in  English  Constitutional  History 
one  has  to  send   one's  pupils   to   books  written  and 
published  under  the  auspices  of  American  Universities. 
Nor  is  the  German  interest  in  Modern  History  confined 
to  Universities ;    nearly  every  State  has  its  royal  or 
ducal  commission  for  the  publication  of  its  historical 
materials,  and  the  same  object  is  energetically  pursued 
by  numbers  of  local  associations ;  most  districts  have 
their    verein   or  gesellschaft   for    the    purposes    of  re- 
search ;  and  practically  no  one  in  Germany  dreams  of 
giving  or  seeking  a  doctor's  degree  unless  his  thesis 
is  based  upon  the  study  of  portions  of  unpublished 
material.     In    Germany   there   are   to-day   some   two 
hundred    regular   periodical    publications    exclusively 
devoted  to  historical  research ;    in   England  there  is 
one.     Now  I  do  not  fancy  all  the  German's  methods ; 
what  he  has  won  in  intensity  of  gaze  he  may  have 
lost  in  broadness  of  outlook ;  his  zeal  may  not  always 
be  tempered  with  wisdom,  but  of  his  zeal  the  facts  I 
have  mentioned  leave  no  doubt.     And  they  might  be 
multiplied  indefinitely,  but  I  have  said  enough  to  show 
that  there  is  no  inherent  incompatibility  between  the 
keenest  pursuit  of  efficiency  in  commerce  and  industry 
and  the  keenest  devotion  to  pure  scholarship  ;  a  nation 
or  a  community  is  not  bound  to  choose  between  the 
two.      Rather   their    existence    side    by    side  —  both 
developed  to  such  an  extent  as  they  are  in  Germany 
— indicates  that  there  may  be  some  subtle  connection 
between  the  two,  and  suggests  that  what  makes  the 
Germans  such  formidable  rivals  is  not  their  preference 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  273 

of  technical  instruction  to  a  liberal  education,  but  the 
intellectual  keenness  which  enables  them  to  pursue 
both  with  success. 

These  facts,  then,  show  that  foreign  Universities  are 
not  blind  to  the  value  of  history  as  a  subject  of  educa- 
tion. Testimony  as  to  that  value  is,  indeed,  super- 
fluous ;  it  is  not  disputed  that  you  cannot  understand 
what  man  is  to-day  unless  you  know  what  he  was 
yesterday  and  the  day  before,  that  the  past  has  pro- 
duced the  present,  and  is  the  only  guide  for  the  future. 
Down  at  the  bottom — even  in  London — we  admit  the 
value  of  history,  though  at  times  we  dissemble  our 
appreciation,  and  at  times  express  it  in  curious  ways. 
Some  three  years  ago  a  committee  was  formed  in 
London  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  Chair  of 
Modern  History  at  Cape  Town  in  South  Africa,  and 
it  was  urged  with  some  force  and  some  truth  that  it 
was  of  the  highest  importance  that  the  future  citizens 
of  the  Empire  in  South  Africa  should  be  made  ac- 
quainted with  at  least  the  outlines  of  the  history  of 
their  own  and  of  other  countries.  I  believe  a  fair  sum 
was  collected  for  this  excellent  project ;  but  the  odd 
thing  was  that  it  did  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
any  one  that  charity  begins  at  home,  and  that  if  it  was 
essential  for  the  youth  of  Cape  Town  to  know  some- 
thing of  history,  it  was,  at  least,  as  essential  for  the  six 
millions  who  live  at  the  heart  of  the  Empire.  For 
when,  about  the  same  time,  an  effort  was  made  to 
establish  a  University  Professorship  of  History  in 
London,  in  memory  of  the  late  Bishop  Creighton,  the 
magnificent  sum  of  ;£"300  was  all  that  was  realised,  a 

s 


274      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

sum  just  sufficient  to  pay  one  lecturer  ;£'ioo  a  year  for 
three  years,  which  have  now  expired.^  That  fiasco  ^ 
seems  to  have  damped  the  ardour  of  those  who  hoped 
to  see  a  School  of  History  established  in  London 
University ;  and  I  have  been  told  that  there  is  no 
demand  for  history  teaching  in  London,  and  that  it  is 
of  no  use  for  the  University  to  appoint  teachers  or 
professors  until  such  a  demand  has  been  created. 

Admitting,  then,  that  we  have  no  History  School  at 
present,  and  assuming  that  there  ought  to  be  such  a 
school,  we  must  next  ask  what  prospect  there  is  of  its 
ever  taking  shape.  And  here  it  is  necessary  to  dis- 
tinguish between  an  undergraduate  and  a  post-graduate 
school  of  Modern  History.  I  have  already  alluded  to 
various  obstacles  in  the  way  of  an  undergraduate 
school  of  Modern  History,  the  rival  attractions  of 
numerous  and  substantial  scholarships  and  exhibitions 
elsewhere,  the  enforcement  of  Greek  in  the  Inter- 
mediate Examination  in  Arts,  and  of  other  subjects  at 
Matriculation.  To  these  must  be  added  the  somewhat 
inadequate  provision  for  teaching  at  various  schools  of 
the  University,  the  difficulty  of  arranging  intercollegiate 
courses,  owing  to  the  geographical  distribution  of  the 
various  centres,^  the  want  of  good  libraries,  and  the 

^  Another  ;^300  was  subsequently  collected,  and  Mr.  Passmore 
Edwards  gave  a  similar  sum  to  found  a  second  lectureship.  Both  are 
associated  with  the  School  of  Economics,  and  even  they  depend  for 
existence  to  some  extent  on  their  appeal  to  the  economic  rather  than  the 
educational  motive. 

2  The  attempt  was  revived  last  year  (1906)  with  no  better  success. 

'  This  difficulty  has  not  been  found  insuperable.  The  present  writer 
has  had  at  his  lectures  students  from  King's,  Bedford,  and  Westfield 
Colleges  ;  and  has  sent  pupils  of  his  own  to  all  colleges  from  which  they 
were  not  debarred  by  sex. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  275 

necessity  of  keeping  down  the  standard  of  the  Honours 
Examination  to  the  level  attainable  by  External 
students  dwelling  in  lonely  villages  inaccessible  to  any 
culture  except  that  which  comes  by  post.  In  all  these 
respects  London  has  had  to  contend  with  infinitely 
greater  difficulties  than  other  Universities.  Yet  they 
are  not  insuperable,  and  they  do  not  absolutely  forbid 
the  creation  of  an  undergraduate  school  of  Modern 
History.  Granting  that  many  of  the  best  students  are, 
and  always  will  be,  drawn  off  elsewhere,  surely  there  is 
a  sufficient  residuum  among  the  six  or  seven  millions 
residing  within  the  University  radius,  most  of  whom 
could  not,  even  with  the  help  of  scholarships,  spend 
three  or  four  years  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  London, 
it  is  said,  engages  about  fifteen  hundred  new  teachers 
for  its  schools  in  every  year  ;  surely  some  of  these 
should  have  undergone  a  course  of  University  instruc- 
tion in  Modern  History,  a  course  which,  for  the  vast 
majority  of  them,  is  only  possible  within  the  London 
radius.  There  are,  moreover,  a  few  scholarships  in 
the  University  of  London ;  and  it  is  a  matter  for 
regret  that  the  very  existence  of  these  scholarships 
appears  to  be  unknown  alike  to  teachers  and  to  pupils. 
With  regard  to  books  and  libraries,  there  is  now  a  fair 
nucleus  for  a  University  Library  at  South  Kensington  ;  ^ 
and  there  is  a  most  admirable  library  here  in   this 

^  The  difficulty  about  the  location  of  the  University  buildings  at  South 
Kensington  is  their  inaccessibility  to  London  undergraduates.  Youths 
who  live  in  South  Kensington  go  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  if  they  go  to 
any  University  at  all.  If  the  richest  city  in  the  world  really  cared  a  brass 
button  for  its  University,  it  would  establish  and  endow  it  on  an  unequalled 
site  now  vacant  in  Aldwych. 


276      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

College,  the  advantages  of  which  are  not  sufficiently 
appreciated,  although  it  has  been  thrown  open  to  every 
Internal  student  of  the  University,  whether  he  or  she 
be  a  member  of  University  College  or  not.  Finally, 
the  differentiation  of  the  External  and  the  Internal 
Examinations  for  the  B.A.  Honours  Degree  opens 
up  at  least  the  possibility  of  raising  the  standard  of 
the  Internal  Degree  to  a  considerably  higher  level.  It 
has,  I  know,  been  suggested  that,  owing  to  the  paucity 
of  candidates  and  the  expense  of  conducting  two  sets 
of  Examinations,  it  may  be  necessary  to  once  more 
amalgamate  the  two.  There  is  no  objection  to  that 
step,  provided  that  the  External  Examination  is  raised 
to  the  level  of  the  Internal,  and  not  the  Internal 
reduced  to  that  of  the  External,  and  provided  that 
there  be  no  ruling-out  of  subjects  on  the  ground  that 
Little  Peddlington  does  not  afford  adequate  facilities 
for  their  study.  A  University  purchases  increased 
numbers  at  too  great  a  cost  when  it  lowers  its  standard 
in  order  to  increase  its  size. 

I  turn  to  a  vastly  more  promising  topic — a  post- 
graduate school  of  Historical  Research  in  London  ; 
and  here  the  stars  in  their  courses  have  fought  in  our 
favour  ;  here  we  have  a  monopoly  of  advantages  which 
no  other  city  in  the  whole  Empire  can  boast.  To 
begin  with,  at  present  there  is  no  competition  ;  for 
there  is  no  real  school  of  research  in  History  in  any 
English  University.^  Not  that  competition  would 
matter ;   for  the  special  opportunities  which  London 

1  An  effort  is  being  made  to  remedy  this  by  the  Regius  Professor  of 
Modern  History  at  Oxford,  in  the  face  of  great  opposition. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  277 

enjoys  should  enable  it — if  it  is  wise — to  outdistance 
its  rivals  with  ease.  Undergraduates  may  be  tempted 
in  that  and  in  this  and  in  every  direction ;  but 
graduates  who  aspire  to  research  in  Modern  History 
are  compelled  to  resort  to  London.  For  here  in  the 
Record  Office,  in  the  British  Museum,  and  in  other 
Government  Departments  are  stored  the  vast  bulk  of 
materials  on  which  they  must  base  their  work,  if  their 
research  is  to  reach  that  standard  which  other  countries 
have  set,  and  which  we  now  have  a  right  to  demand. 
It  is  true  that  the  Bodleian  has  considerable  manu- 
script collections  unused,  untouched,  unseen  ;  it  is  true 
that  there  are  archives  at  various  noblemen's  seats, 
like  those  of  Lord  Salisbury  at  Hatfield,  or  those  of 
the  Duke  of  Portland  at  Welbeck,  and  of  course  the 
materials  for  local  history  must  always  be  sought  in 
various  localities.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of 
national  history  all  these  are  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of 
records  existing  in  London.  Of  course,  some  of  these 
have  been  printed  or  calendared,  and  thus  made  acces- 
sible in  any  respectable  library ;  and,  indeed,  I  read  in 
a  review  the  other  day  the  statement  that  the  materials 
for  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  been 
worked  over  so  often  and  scrutinised  so  closely  that 
nothing  now  remained  to  be  learned  or  to  be  said  on 
the  subject.  That  only  illustrates  the  unfathomable 
ignorance  of  reviewers — I  speak  as  a  fairly  frequent 
reviewer  myself.  For,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  human 
eye  has  so  much  as  glanced  at  all  the  materials  for  the 
history  of  that  century,  and  the  same  may  be  said  with 
even   more   certainty   for  every  succeeding   age.     To 


278       FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

mention  one  class  of  material, — the  despatches  of 
English  ambassadors  abroad  :  those  extending  from 
1509  to  1579  have  indeed  been  calendared  under  the 
direction  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls.  But,  except  for 
these  seventy  years,  they  remain  for  the  most  part 
unprinted  and  unread  ;  and  even  when  calendared  it 
takes  about  a  generation  for  their  contents  to  be 
digested,  and  at  least  two  generations  for  the  truth 
that  is  in  them  to  filter  down  into  the  history  that  is 
taught  in  our  schools  and  Universities.  Of  the  extant 
materials  for  English  History  not  one-tenth  has  yet 
been  calendared  or  printed,  and  the  whole  of  English 
history,  as  it  is  written  and  read  or  known,  is  like  an 
edifice  built  on  foundations  which  do  not  occupy  one- 
tenth  of  the  possible  area.  Here  is  a  void  clamouring 
to  be  filled ;  herein  lies  the  unique  opportunity  for  a 
post-graduate  school  of  research  in  London  University. 
Circumstances,  too,  seem  to  mark  out  beforehand 
the  lines  on  which  this  post-graduate  school  should 
run.  As  the  materials  existing  in  London  are  mainly 
concerned  with  English  History,  it  is  obvious  that  this 
school  should  be  mainly,  though  not  exclusively,  a 
school  of  research  in  English  History.  But  even  within 
the  limits  of  English  History  there  are  certain  subjects 
which  pre-eminently  demand  our  attention  ;  and  first 
and  foremost  among  these  I  place  the  subject  of  Naval 
History.  For,  considering  that  this  Empire  is  the 
greatest  naval  power  the  world  has  ever  known,  con- 
sidering it  has  had  the  longest  and  most  glorious 
naval  history  on  record,  considering  further  that  it  has 
been  built  up  and  rests  upon  sea  power,  that  its  very 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  279 

existence  therefore  depends  to  a  large  extent  upon  the 
true  interpretation  and  appreciation  of  the  lessons  of 
naval  history,  it  is  surely  an  astounding  fact  that  there 
is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  professorship  or  a  lecture- 
ship or  a  readership  in  naval  history  in  any  University 
whatsoever  within  the  limits  of  the  British  dominions. 

Fortunately  there  has  been  of  late  years  no  great 
naval  war  to  test  how  much  the  nation  may  have 
risked  by  this  neglect ;  but  it  is  not  a  fact  of  which  we 
can  be  proud  that  we  are  even  now  indebted  to  the 
individual  enterprise  and  researches  of  a  distinguished 
American  author  for  the  best  exposition  of  the  in- 
fluence of  sea  power  upon  history.  In  London  alone 
can  this  need  be  adequately  supplied,  for  here  in  the 
Record  Office  we  have,  in  enormous  masses,  materials 
of  every  description,  hundreds  of  volumes  of  des- 
patches from  Admirals  in  command  on  the  various 
stations,  letters  to  them  from  the  Home  government, 
proceedings  of  courts-martial,  and  logs  of  ships  record- 
ing the  individual  history  of  most  of  the  vessels  of 
which  the  British  Navy  has  from  time  to  time  been 
composed. 

Closely  connected  with  naval  history  is  a  study  for 
which  the  present  provision  is  equally  insufficient.  I 
am  no  great  admirer  myself  of  what  J.  R.  Green  used 
to  call  the  '  drum  and  trumpet '  style  of  history ;  but 
at  the  same  time  no  nation  can  with  impunity  neglect 
the  teachings  of  the  history  of  war  ;  and,  indeed,  I 
suppose  it  is  generally  admitted  that  a  better  apprecia- 
tion of  those  lessons  on  the  part  of  the  nation  and  of 
its  rulers  in  recent  years  might  have  saved  us  some 


280      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

thousands  of  lives  and  some  millions  of  money.  I 
know  that  we,  as  a  people,  hold  the  student  and  the 
theorist  cheap  compared  with  what  we  call  the 
practical  man ;  but  we  often  forget  that  the  man 
who  won  the  Franco-Prussian  War  was  firstly  a 
student  and  a  theorist,  and  that  Napoleon  himself 
knew  almost  by  heart  every  great  campaign  recorded 
in  history. 

A  third  topic  which  would  claim  the  particular 
attention  of  a  school  of  research  in  this  University 
would  naturally  be  the  history  of  London  itself.  I 
stated  above  that  a  moderate-sized  city  or  town  in 
Germany,  or  for  that  matter  in  France  as  well,  would 
blush  if  it  did  not  possess  some  association  for  the 
study  and  publication  of  its  own  historical  records.  I 
know  of  no  such  society  in  London ;  perhaps  the 
subject  is  too  vast.  And  when  I  speak  of  the  history 
of  London,  I  would  not  exclude  the  most  recent  times; 
for  a  course  of  study  of  London  history  should  be  the 
first  introduction  to  the  scientific  investigation  of  its 
present-day  problems  of  local  government,  the  vastest 
problems  of  the  kind  with  which  human  intellect  has 
ever  been  called  upon  to  deal. 

A  fourth  branch  of  history  of  which  we  should 
naturally  make  a  speciality  is  the  history  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  partly  because  that  vital  period  is 
deliberately  cut  from  the  historical  curricula  of  other 
Universities,^  and  used  to  be  universally  ignored  in 
schools ;  so  that  of  no  period  is  the  ordinary  British 
citizen  so  ignorant  as  of  that  which  immediately  pre- 

*  This  defect,  again,  has  been  remedied  to  some  extent. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  281 

ceded,  and  therefore  most  powerfully  influenced,  the 
age  in  which  he  lives.  The  other  day  I  set  a  question 
in  the  Matriculation  Examination  upon  the  origin  and 
growth  of  the  idea  of  Imperial  Federation.  Incredible 
as  the  fact  may  seem,  about  half  the  candidates  who 
attempted  that  question  had  not  the  ghost  of  a  notion 
what  Imperial  Federation  meant ;  many  thought  it 
was  equivalent  to  Colonial  self-government,  and  at 
last  I  came  to  regard  it  as  a  sign  of  unusual  in- 
telligence when  a  candidate  stated  that  in  1867 
Imperial  Federation  was  granted  to  Canada,  and  in 
1900  to  the  Australian  Colonies.  Yet  Dr.  Arnold  of 
Rugby  regarded  contemporary  history  as  more  im- 
portant than  either  ancient  or  modern,  and  in  fact 
superior  to  it  by  all  the  superiority  of  the  end  to  the 
means.  In  France,  such  is  the  weight  attached  to  the 
study  of  our  own  times,  that  there  is  a  specially 
organised  course  of  contemporary  history  with  expert 
teachers  and  appropriate  text-books ;  and  London 
University  never  did  a  wiser  thing  than  when  it 
extended  the  modern  history  of  its  curricula  down  to 
the  death  of  Queen  Victoria. 

With  all  these  departments  there  would  naturally  be 
associated  competent  instruction  in  the  meaning  and 
use  of  original  sources  such  as  hitherto  English 
scholars  have  had  to  pick  up  for  themselves  or  go 
to  the  l^cole  des  Chartes  at  Paris  to  learn.  The  other 
day  I  was  asked  by  a  history  tutor  of  twenty  years' 
standing  (not  in  this  University),  *  Can  you  tell  me 
what  an  original  authority  is  ? '  and  a  University 
magazine   recently  described  a  living   scholar  as    an 


282      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

original  authority  on  the  history  of  Ancient  Greece! 
Yet  the  definition  of  an  original  authority  is  the  most 
elementary  axiom  of  historical  research,  and  the  basis 
of  all  historical  criticism. 

These  are  some  of  the  measures  which  might  be 
taken  to  build  up  a  school  of  Modern  History  worthy 
of  the  capital  of  the  Empire  and  of  its  University.  But 
the  function  of  a  University  is  not  exhausted  when  it 
has  collected  and  trained  a  number  of  youths  in 
various  arts  and  sciences.  That  is  its  internal  duty, 
its  duty  to  itself;  it  has  also  an  external  duty  to  the 
nation  which  does  (or  should)  provide  it  with  funds. 
*  It  is  not  my  business  to  make  chemists,'  an  eminent 
professor  of  chemistry  is  reported  as  saying,  *  but  to 
make  chemistry.'  It  will  not  be  the  business  of  a 
School  of  History  merely  to  make  historians,  but  to 
discover  and  spread  historical  truth.  A  University 
should  be  a  focus  of  national  intellect,  and  a  source  of 
national  inspiration  ;  and  it  fulfils  its  function  badly  if 
it  does  not  help  to  expand  the  national  mind.  Cen- 
turies ago  there  used  to  be  sung  a  jingle  to  the  effect 
that  when  Oxford  draws  knife,  England  is  soon  at 
strife,  a  boast  that  Oxford  stood  not  so  much  upon  the 
ancient  ways  as  in  the  van  of  national  movement.  It 
can  hardly  be  said,  I  fear,  that  English  Universities 
have  maintained  their  hegemony  of  the  national 
intellect ;  they  certainly  do  not  contribute  so  much 
to  our  intellectual  prestige  as  German  Universities  do 
to  that  of  their  Fatherland  ;  and  it  has  often  been  a 
subject  of  comment  abroad  that  such  men  as  Darwin, 
Huxley,  and    Spencer  should    never  have   occupied 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  283 

Chairs  in  an  English  University,  as  though  there  were  a 
great  gulf  growing,  if  not  fixed,  between  the  Universities 
and  the  leaders  of  the  nation.  That  reproach  does  not 
of  course  lie  at  the  door  of  London,  and  one  may  hope 
that,  when  London  has  its  properly  appointed  staff  of 
professors  and  teachers,  it  will  do  something  to  recover 
the  lost  national  lead. 

One  at  least  of  the  services  which  our  History  School 
might  render  its  day  and  generation  would  be  to 
broaden  the  meaning  and  increase  the  uses  of  history. 
For  history  should  record  the  whole  life  and  not 
merely  the  political  life  of  nations  ;  it  should  devote  as 
much  space  to  the  evolution  of  thought  as  to  the 
development  of  events.  A  hint  of  the  way  in  which 
it  might  be  studied  and  written  is  given  in  a  book  by 
an  able  Cambridge  historian  entitled  The  Annals  of 
Politics  and  Culture^  where  on  one  page  is  recorded 
the  progress  of  politics  and  on  the  other  the  simul- 
taneous advancement  of  science,  of  art,  and  of  literature; 
a  more  elaborate  hint  may  be  found  in  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography,  v^h^XQ  as  much  space  is  given  to 
Newton  as  to  Marlborough,  and  twice  as  much  to 
Shakespeare  as  to  Queen  Elizabeth ;  and  if  there  be 
any  one  here  with  abundant  means  and  a  few  score 
years  of  time  to  spare,  he  might  employ  them  worse 
than  in  re-writing  those  sixty-six  volumes  in  the  form 
of  a  national  history ;  he  would  be  able  to  trace  not 
merely  the  growth  of  the  British  people  in  politics,  but 
their  achievements  in  arts,  philosophy,  science,  com- 
merce and  industry.  Seriously,  I  should  like  to  see 
a  history  which  gave  as  much  space,  for  instance,  to 


284      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

the  story  of  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Society  as  to 
that  of  the  Popish  Plot,  as  much  to  the  discoveries  of 
Joseph  Priestley  as  to  the  speeches  of  Edmund  Burke. 
For  in  this  way  history  could  be  made  profitable  not 
merely  to  the  politician  and  to  the  publicist,  but  to  the 
philosopher,  the  scientist,  and  the  physician. 

Further,  our  School  of  History  might  perform  not 
merely  an  academic  but  a  national  service  in  raising 
the  standard  of  taste  and  criticism.  I  referred  above 
to  the  inadequate  appreciation  which  makes  the  work 
of  so  many  scholars  disheartening  and  unremunera- 
tive.  It  is  not  that  there  is  no  popular  interest  in 
history  ;  the  hundreds  of  books  on  historical  subjects 
which  are  published  every  year  are  sufficient  evidence 
of  this.  But  it  is  because  that  popular  taste  is  ill- 
educated  and  crude.  No  one  writes  treatises  on 
Helium  or  Engineering  without  some  sort  of  acquaint- 
ance with  the  subject,  but  every  one  thinks  that  he  or 
she  can  write  history  and  biography  without  any 
preliminary  training  or  any  specific  research ;  and  the 
public  will  buy  any  book  if  the  author  possesses  a 
handle  to  his  or  her  name.  A  well-known  man  of 
letters  and  politician  once  asked  me  how  much  a 
certain  scholar  received  for  a  certain  book.  I  happened 
to  know  and  told  him.  '  What,'  he  exclaimed, '  do  you 
mean  to  say  that  they  insulted  a  man  like  that  with  the 
offer  of  such  a  sum  ?  '  I  said  that  scholars  were  often 
insulted  that  way.  *  Well,'  he  said, '  let  me  give  you  a 
piece  of  advice ;  before  you  write  a  book,  get  into 
Parliament,  or  still  better  get  made  a  cabinet  minister; 
and  I  guarantee  that  the  publishers  will  pay  you  ten 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  285 

times  that  amount  for  any  book  you  may  write  on 
whatever  subject  you  choose.' 

Now  I  may  be  told  that  it  is  impossible  to  do  the 
things  which  I  have  suggested  without  help  and  funds, 
which  at  present  the  University  can  scarcely  hope  to 
command.  Nothing  of  course  can  be  done  by  sitting 
still  and  sighing  at  the  magnitude  of  the  task. 
Perhaps  not  much  will  be  done  until  London  finds 
legs  of  its  own  and  dispenses  with  borrowed  crutches  ; 
but  I  do  not  think  the  question  of  funds  is  fatal,  and  I 
am  sure  there  is  no  greater  delusion  than  that  the 
quality  of  work  depends  on  the  amount  which  is  paid 
for  it.  Milton  got  £10  for  Paradise  Lost]  it  would 
have  been  no  better  a  poem  if  he  had  received  ;^  10,000; 
and  if  some  of  our  latter-day  novelists  received  £10, 
instead  of  ;^i 0,000,  their  work  could  not  possibly  be 
any  worse.  There  are  scholars  to-day  doing  historical 
research  of  a  very  high  order  for  nothing  more  than 
the  love  of  the  thing  ;  and  some  of  them  would  be 
glad  to  give  their  services  to  the  University  for  a 
price  which  in  other  professions  might  seem  absurd. 
Their  appointments  need  not  be  permanent,  for  fixity 
of  tenure  is  often  more  pleasant  than  stimulating  to 
the  tenant;  and  you  can  get  vastly  more  and  vastly 
better  work  by  paying  a  yearly  succession  of  lecturers 
;^ioo,  than  you  can  by  giving  one  man  ;^iooo  a  year 
for  life.  At  any  rate,  nothing  has  done  so  much  in 
recent  years  for  historical  teaching  at  Oxford  as  the 
establishment  of  the  annual  Ford  Lectureship.  For 
that  lectureship  the  services  have  been  secured  of  men 
like  the  late  Dr.  Gardiner,  the  late  Sir  Leslie  Stephen, 


286      FACTORS  IN  MODERN  HISTORY 

and  the  late  Professor  Maitland  ;  and  the  result  has 
been  in  each  case  to  produce  not  merely  a  course 
of  lectures,  but  a  book  of  the  highest  historical  value. 
Something  similar  might  be  done  at  London  for  even  a 
smaller  sum  ;  ^  and  two  things  at  least  we  can  do 
without  any  money  at  all.  We  can  raise  the  standard 
of  London  degrees  in  history  until  they  rank  with  or 
above  the  highest ;  and  we  can  insist  that  no  doctorate 
be  granted  except  for  work  which  shall  be  no  mere 
juvenile  essays,  but  solid  contributions  to  historical 
knowledge  based  upon  original  research  among  pub- 
lished and  unpublished  sources. 

One  last  idea  I  should  like  to  mention  ;  it  is  perhaps 
the  most  fantastic  of  all,  for  certainly  it  could  not  be 
carried  into  effect  without  financial  support.  I  mean 
the  idea  that  London  should  have  its  own  University 
Press.2  A  scholarly  but  somewhat  cynical  friend  of 
mine  says  that  if  he  had  a  fortune,  which  he  hasn't, 
and  if,  having  this  fortune,  he  felt  disposed  to  part  with 
it — which  he  certainly  would  not — he  would  not  endow 
professorships,  thinking  that  perhaps  professors  even 
now  sometimes  get  too  much  and  do  too  little ;  he 
would  not  endow  libraries,  although,  or  perhaps  be- 
cause, he  is  a  librarian  himself;  but  he  would  endow 
printing  presses ;  for  by  that  means  alone  could  much 
of  the  research  now  fruitlessly  done  be  made  known 
to  the  world  at  large.  It  would  possess  a  further 
enormous     advantage    for    London    University ;     we 

^  The  attempt  is  to  be  made  for  this  year  (1907) ;  but  the  funds  only 
come  out  of  a  precarious  income  ;  and  there  is  no  permanency  about  it. 

'^  This  is  under  consideration  in  various  forms ;  but  capital  is  as  usual 
the  rock  upon  which  it  must  be  built — or  split. 


THE  STUDY  OF  HISTORY  287 

should  not  be  hampered  by  the  constant  plea  that  such 
and  such  a  subject  must  not  be  prescribed  for  examina- 
tion or  curricula  because  there  are  no  good  books  or 
editions  dealing  with  it,  or  else  that  those  books  are 
not  within  the  means  of  the  average  student,  for  then 
we  could  always  provide  our  own  editions  and  text- 
books. 

Now,  it  is  often  made  a  reproach  to  young  men, 
that  they  dream  dreams  and  see  visions.  But  if  it  is 
commonly  a  reproach,  it  becomes  once  and  again  a 
privilege ;  for  a  vision  may  be  one  of  the  future  and 
a  dream  does  sometimes  come  true.  And  one  of  the 
dreams  which  I  am  sure  will  some  day  come  true  is  this  : 
that  as  we  are  citizens  of  no  mean  city,  so  shall  we  be 
graduates,  undergraduates,  fellow-workers  in  no  mean 
university,  a  university  every  school  of  which  shall 
focus  knowledge,  radiate  truth,  and  help  to  illumine  the 
national  mind. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A,  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


